Growing Up Omega
by ragmanthemadman
Summary: An Alpha and Omega high school story. Humphrey grows up in a society that isn't very fond of Omegas. He has made decisions in his past that have led to violence and tragedy. Trying to make a new start in Jasper, he will find new friends and a new life. Will his past come back to haunt him or will Humphrey form a life of peace? (Rated M for Violence, Language, and sexual themes.)
1. Backstory

**Hey, everyone. I decided to write a high school story because I just graduated from there one, and two I was inspired by other high school stories like Getting to Know You and The Beginning of Madness. But you don't see much of what Alpha's and Omega's are differentiated by. Most times its athletics but I want to take a different approach to it. In this story, Alpha, Omega, and Beta are races. Like Caucasians, Hispanics, and African Americans in our world. I'm going to explore the issues in today's society by portraying them in this story. You'll get what I mean as we go along if you haven't already. Without further ado, here is the first chapter.**

 **P.S. I went with humanoid wolves for this story. They have fur and a tail but you can also see their skin.**

[Humphrey's POV]

I awoke to the sound of my alarm. Sounded like something the military would use to signal an attack. I slammed my hand on the button on my clock to turn it off. I rose from my bed and walked to the bathroom, only wearing a t-shirt and shorts. I turned the light on in the bathroom and took a look in the mirror. My fur was matted, I had bags under my eyes, and there were these 'crusts' in my eyes. I sighed and turned on the sink water to wash my face. I would've showered as well but I normally wait until after I do some rigorous activity before I do so. It's not like I sweat in bed anyway. I went back to my room and got ready for the first day of school. I didn't want to try and impress. I just put on a t-shirt with a Yankees logo on it and some jean shorts. I grabbed my school bag and went downstairs. When I arrived at the kitchen Shima and Jerome were waiting for me.

"Morning son." I hated when he called me that considering I'm not his son, but we have to do it.

"Morning Dad."

"Good morning Bro!" Shima said to me whilst giving me a hug. She had Dark brown fur with Brown skin. She's 14 so she's just starting high school, while I'm 17 and going into my senior year. Oh yeah, another thing, she's not my actual sister.

"Morning Sis." I released the hug and she frowned at me.

"What no kiss for your sister?" I hated having to do this but if I had to make this work then so be it. I gave her a kiss on her forehead and she just jumped away happily.

"Better hurry up and finish getting ready! School starts in a half hour!" I yelled after her.

"I know! Give me a second, I want to look good." I rolled me eyes. She already looked good in my opinion. Athletic and she has a nice body. She hit puberty pretty early so her chest is pretty developed. She never told me officially what her size is but if I had to guess, I'd say she's a B cup and still growing. Don't tell me this is incest either because I already told you we're not actually brother and sister. Jerome looked at me intently as I grabbed a pop tart to eat.

"You still ok with all of this?" To be honest I wasn't but it needs to be done so I just roll with it.

"Yeah, whatever keeps me off the radar." I took a bite of my pop tart and he just sighed.

"You should know better than to lie to a cop." He walked toward the door and grabbed his car keys. "I'll be waiting outside for you two." He said before closing the door behind him.

I know what you're thinking. What gives? Why am I living with a cop who isn't my dad, and a female teenager who isn't my real sister? That's a long story and fortunately for you, it's something I'm willing to share.

It all started in middle school. I was in eighth grade and about to move up to high school. It's normally a happy time for most people. Well, not for me. My parents were both working tirelessly. They barely spent any time at home with me and I was left feeling lonely for the most part. No amount of video games, or extracurricular activities would satisfy the loneliness either. The day before the moving up ceremony, I was approached by a kid named Garth.

"Hey, you're Humphrey right?" I nodded. Garth was an Alpha and it surprised me that he was speaking to an Omega. "Do you want to hang out with my friends after school. We're going to get a softball game going." It seemed innocent enough, plus I was desperate for someone to hang out with.

"Sure, I'll play with you guys." I responded.

After school, Garth took me to a local softball field. Other people were already there warming up. One of the guys spotted me and Garth and looked a little angry.

"Hey Garth, what's this Omega doing here?" He said pointing at me with his bat.

"Calm down dude, he just wants to play softball that's all." The guy just scoffed and he brought everyone into the mound. He and Garth were team captains and they picked their teams. I was on Garth's team as it seemed like the other guy wanted nothing to do with me. Garth asked me what position I would prefer to play and I told him anywhere that I was needed. He was short on outfielders so he put me in left field.

The game went on as normal. I got a couple flyballs and I made easy work of them. I singled and scored twice. It was the bottom of the seventh and Garth's team was down by three. Bases were loaded with one out and I was up. The other team's captain was pitching. As soon as he saw me walk up he chuckled.

"Easy out guys, let's get the double play!" he called out behind him. I wasn't amused by his little shtick and I made sure I dug in more than usual in the batters box. The first pitch was a hard fastball that almost hit my face. The pitcher chuckled a bit. "My bad dude, my hand slipped." His facial expression told me that he did it on purpose, though. the second pitch was another fastball up in the zone. I put all my weight behind my swing and hit the ball. I stood and watched for a bit as the left fielder ran after the ball. He hit the edge of the grass, then the warning track, then the wall, leaped, but the ball was way over his head. I had just hit a walk-off grand slam. It felt good to put that guy in his place. Once I saw the ball clear the fence I took my trot around the bases. Garth and the rest of the team were waiting for me at home plate and as soon as I touched it they crowded me, giving me high-fives and pats on the back. The pitcher walked up to me with authority after the celebration was over, brought his arm back, and slugged me in my cheek. I dropped to the ground from the hit and he tried to come at me for more but his team was holding him back.

"What the hell was that Mega!? (Racial Slur for Omega) You think you're better than Alphas? Think again, you'll never be able to become better than us!" Garth stepped in front of him.

"That's enough! Quit saying those racist things. Humphrey may be an Omega but that doesn't make him worse than Alphas!" He yelled in his face. The pitcher just scoffed and got the other guys off of him.

"I'm going home." He grabbed his gear and left the field with some pep in his step. Garth reached out his hand and helped me off the ground.

"Don't mind him. He's not fond of Omegas."

"Clearly." I rubbed my jaw to try and sooth the pain a bit.

"Need something for that?" Garth asked.

"I think I'll be ok." I took my hand off of my jaw "Thanks, Garth."

"No problem dude." He packed up and got ready to go as well but he said one last thing to me. "If you want to hang out more, here's my number." He gave me a slip of paper with his number written on it.

"Sure thing."

For the next couple years, that's exactly what I did. I hung out more and more with Garth and his friends. Over that time, though, I realized what started going on. Garth and his friends wore matching clothing throughout our time together. He even got me to wear matching clothing. I was ignorant to it at first but I wised up my sophomore year. When we were hanging out at a park I asked him about my suspicion.

"Hey Garth, you're in a gang aren't you." Garth sighed. "Yeah, it's run by my dad, or at least he runs the part that's in this area. I kinda felt obligated to join at first, but then it grew on me. I didn't want to tell you because I didn't know how you would take it, being an Omega and all. I didn't want you to feel like you were playing into your own stereotype." I understood what he was saying.

"The other guys are a part of the gang too right?" Garth nodded. "You guys are with me more than my family will ever be, I'm glad that I hang out with you guys." I stood up from the bench we were sitting on. "And I want to join."

From that point on I was a member of the Runners. I was desperate for a crowd to hang out with and they accepted me with open arms considering I was friends with Garth. I did some odd jobs here and there like delivering packages to people. What were in them? I was told not to look. I didn't care either as long as I had a posse to go back to. Everything was going fine. As far as my parents were concerned I was just hanging out with friends. At the end of my Junior year, however, things went bad. I was called by one of the higher-ups to help with a job involving a bank. They said I had an easy job and to leave everything else to them. I went along for the ride and was told to just go in and try and locate where important items are like cameras and guards. Once I told them what I found out they told me to go back inside and to play along like I'm a victim. What that meant I didn't know. I did what I was told though and went inside the bank. A few minutes later the guys came in with their guns drawn, yelling at everyone to get on the ground. I did as they told me and followed along. They found what they were looking for quickly, but they didn't have enough people to carry everything out of there.

"Humph, come help us!" They took to calling me Humph a while ago. I went to see what they wanted me to help with and they gave me a blue gym bag. "Carry this to the van we came in." I nodded but nearly dropped the bag which was extremely heavy. I put it over my shoulder and skipped as fast as I could toward the back of the bank. I was about to exit the back door when I heard someone yell behind me.

"FREEZE, STAY WHERE YOU ARE!" I didn't have to turn behind me to know that cops showed up. I picked up the pace and made it outside to an ally. I saw the van waiting at the end of it. The others were getting everything secured for a getaway.

"HURRY UP HUMPH! WE GOT TO GO!" One of them called to me. I quickened my pace even faster but the weight of the bag made me get off balance and I face planted into the asphalt. I looked up to see the van start driving off and cops coming down to my location. I felt someone grab my arms and put them behind my back. I heard one thing before I blacked out

"You have the right to remain silent."

When I came to I was in a cell. The bag that I was carrying was no longer in my possession. I had a bandage on my head from faceplanting into the ground earlier. When I touched it I was immediately punished by a blistering headache. I put both hands on my head and groaned in pain from it. I felt myself becoming dizzy from the pain as well. Someone talking snapped me out of it, though.

"You're finally awake." I looked up with blurry eyesight, but I could easily tell that whoever was in front of my cell was a cop. As my vision got clearer I could tell that the cop was an Alpha because of his light skin. He used his key to open my cell and I thought it was because I was being freed but that was not the case. "Someone would like to have a chat with you." I'm happy I didn't have any handcuffs on but he noticed that I didn't and motioned for me to come over.

"Do we have to do handcuffs?" I asked him he motioned for me to turn around.

"Sorry kid, it's procedure. Have to have these on during transport." He finished putting the handcuffs on me a bit tight but I wasn't going to push my luck and ask him to loosen them. He stood behind me and told me where to go. When we made it to what looked less like an interrogation room and more like an office he went in first, then motioned for me to follow behind him. I walked inside and immediately was brought into a hug.

"Humphrey, baby what happened?" That was my mother. Her hug was really tight and it irritated the cuffs on my wrists. When she brought her hand to my head I let out an audible 'OW!' She released me from her hug and gave me a good look over. "What did you get yourself into?" A question I wouldn't have been able to give a clear answer to. Another officer behind a desk was chatting with my dad.

"Officer Womack, can you kindly take the cuffs off of this young man? I assure you he will not be a threat." The cop who brought me here in the first place pulled out a key and took off the handcuffs. I was thankful that he took them off but he didn't seem so keen on it. "You're dismissed, officer." Officer Womack gave a lazy salute and walked out of the office. "Humphrey, if you can take a seat." I sat down next to my mom who was still looking me over and my dad was standing behind the both of us in between the two chair mom and I were sitting in. "Now Humphrey I brought you and your parents here because you got yourself into a sticky situation." I wasn't exactly sure how I was, but I figured I would figure it out throughout the conversation.

"Humphrey I'm sorry this happened but whatever the officer needs you tell him ok?" I nodded to my mom but something told me this wasn't an interrogation.

"Humphrey, do you know why you were arrested?" I thought back to the heist that the Runners tried to pull off.

"I was involved in a heist." The officer nodded his head slowly.

"That's correct. Judging by the clothes you're wearing, I assume you're a member of the Runners correct?" I looked at my red and black track shirt and red shorts. Red and black are usually associated with Runners.

"Yes, I am." I heard dad audibly sigh. It was clear he did not like the fact I was in a gang.

"I see. You do realize that you are a member of a drug running gang?" That was the first I heard of it.

"No, I wasn't." The officer nodded again.

"Did they make you deliver packages or money to others and told you not to look at the contents in them?"

"Yeah but I volunteered to do so, and what does that have to do with anything?"

"Humphrey, you delivered drugs and money to different members of the Runners. That heist you were a part of was an operation to get more money for their business." I was astonished I couldn't believe that I was so blind to what was going on behind the scenes.

"I see." I tried not to cry but tears were slipping out. "I'm going to jail, aren't I?" I said with my voice on the brink of breaking.

"Normally yes, but there are two reasons why we cannot. One, the Runners have people in prison who will carry out hits on people who give information to us about them. Two, I worked out a deal with your parents and they are willing to move you away from Sawtooth so you don't have to worry about the Runners anymore." I shook my head disapprovingly.

"No way. They wouldn't murder one of their own members." The officer leaned forward from his desk.

"I'm going to tell you reality son, these guys don't care about you unless you make them money. As soon as you become a threat to exposing their operation they'll kill you without a second thought." I was about to rebuttal that statement but then I remembered the crew leaving me behind. I thought that maybe he was right and that the only reason they were nice to me was because I worked and made money for them.

"Fine, I understand." The thought of everything just made me feel depressed. It seemed like no one in the world cared about me. my parents did but they are never around to show it. figures the only time they show up is to bail me out of trouble.

"We'll leave first thing in the morning. Thank you for your help officer Betsey." My dad came out from behind me and Mom and shook the Officer's hand.

"No problem Matt, and we're old friends, just call me Jerome." That's the first I've heard dad be friends with a cop. Mom pulled me out of my seat and lead me outside the station into the car. We sat there by ourselves for a minute until dad hopped into the driver's seat afterward.

"They're sending a car to patrol the street just in case." Dad said as he came in. he didn't start the car right away though which only meant that we were going to have a chat. "A gang? A freaking gang? What were you thinking son? What made you think that a crowd like this was a good one?" He spoke in a scolding tone but he wasn't yelling.

"They treated me like I was a member of their family. It was nice to have people to hang out with for a change." I saw dad get a scrunched up look in the rearview mirror when I said that.

"What do you mean Humphrey? Do you not hang out with friends."

"Those were my friends." I put my head down. "Until they abandoned me. Now I know how Shima feels." Mom and Dad shared a quick glance with each other.

"What do you mean you know how Shima feels?" I got a bit angry at that.

"I know what it's like to be abandoned and alone. It was horrible. Solitude is just a cold, dark place where all you can hear is your own heartbeat. When you're happy, no one is there to be happy with you. When you're sad, no one is there to comfort you. All you can do is bear the weight of your emotions alone."

"But you have us."

"Do I? You guys spend so much time at work that I barely get a chance to tell you about my day when I want to. When I'm upset you guys are never there to comfort me. It's like I'm living alone with an invisible butler who makes sure the kitchen is stocked yet I never see him around." They both looked dejected when I said that.

"You're right. We haven't been home a lot of the time, and that's going to change." Dad said.

"We want you to be happy Humphrey, and we will make sure that we do whatever it takes to make that happen." It cheered me up a little bit when they said that but I'll believe it when I see it.

"We love you, Humphrey." They said in unison. I chuckled a bit at the circumstance.

"I love you too guys."

We went back home and started packing what we wanted to bring with us. The house we're moving to has furniture already so all we had to pack was our clothes and material possessions. In the middle of packing, I heard the doorbell ring. I went to answer and what I was met with was one of the patrolling cops holding Shima by her arm much to her dislike. She was struggling to get out of his grip.

"Hey, it's alright, she's family." Not a total lie. She comes by so often she's like family. The cop looked at me and while he was distracted Shima freed herself from his grip and ran to my side, pulling me into a hug.

"My apologies, I had my orders. I was to make sure that no one disturbed your house."

"I get it, thank you for helping." The officer tipped his cap and went back to his car where his partner was sitting on the hood. They got in and continued their patrol. Shima looked up at me.

"Since when are your guys so important?" I didn't want to lie to her but I didn't want her to know that I was arrested to either.

"Since we're moving." She jumped out of her hug.

"What!?" She looked me dead in my eyes and was on the verge of tears. I already regretted not telling her the truth. "But, became friends with that group of people you hang out with." My eyes widened at that. The last thing I wanted her to do was to get mixed up in the same crowd I was mixed up in.

"Come inside." I let her go inside the house and I followed behind her, shutting the door behind me. "You shouldn't hang out with that crowd. Stay as far away from them as possible." Mom and Dad came downstairs right as I said that.

"Hey, Shima." Mom said. Shima just waved.

"Why?"

"They are not good people." I sat her down on the couch. "You see, earlier today I was…" I stopped when I heard a loud engine roar. It was an engine I recognized too well. I grabbed Shima and dove behind the couch. "GET DOWN!" I yelled. I saw mom and dad give me a confused look.

 _BANG! BANG! BANG!_

The sound of full auto gunfire was abundant in my ears. Glas from the front door windows started shattering. I put my head down and covered Shima's eyes making sure that neither one of us would get glass in our eyes. The gunfire continued for what seemed like forever before it stopped and the engine was heard speeding away. I made sure I couldn't hear the engine anymore before I looked up. The entire front of the house was in shambles. Broken glass from the windows was all over the floor. Not to mention, there was plenty of bullet holes. I looked down at Shima who was covering her ears and was visibly shaking. I shook her a bit to get her attention.

"Are you ok?" Her hands left her ears and she gave me a nod. I looked over to where my parents were standing and I couldn't see them. I saw some legs sticking out and I thought they were just in cover still. "Mom, dad, it's alright you can get out of cover now." I didn't see a response. I got up and walked towards the legs. As I got close I saw the torso, then some blood, then their heads. A hole in both of their foreheads only made me collapse. "NO! Why them!? Why!?" I was just about to give them a hug when the cops broke the door down and saw me hovering over my parents. I was full on sobbing when the came in and one of them had to pull me away.

"It's a crime scene now kid, you can't contaminate evidence." I was thrashing around, doing anything I could to get free from his grip. Another cop came over and escorted Shima out of the house as well. I broke free from the officer's grip and went to Shima. I held her close and used my body to block the scene.

"Humphrey? What happened? Where's your parents?" She tried to look behind me but I continued to block the scene from her. I didn't want her to see them. I tried my best to get a hold of myself for her.

"They're going * _Sniffle*_ to be fine." I said with sadness all over my voice. The officer still escorted us out while another went to secure the scene. When we got outside there were people in front of their homes watching the scene unfold. It was at that moment that I just wanted to disappear. I didn't want anyone to see me, or Shima. If the stakes were this high, the less I'm known the better.

Shima and I were taken to the police station. My mind was racing as I kept blaming myself.

 _This is your fault._

 _You let this happen._

 _You should be ashamed._

 _It should've been you._

I just let the voices keep talking. Doing nothing to counter their words because, in my mind, they were true. I let this happen. It was me they were after, not them. I looked at Shima who was playing around on my phone. I let her use it while we waited for Officer Betsey to bring us in for a chat. A door opened from his office and he motioned for us to go inside. I nudged Shima and motioned for her to follow me. She put the phone on standby and followed me into the room. She took a seat in a chair next to me and Officer Betsey sat behind his desk.

"First off let me extend my condolences for your parents. They were, really good friends of mine and because of that they put me down as your guardian if they were to pass away." I looked up in shock. I couldn't believe what he was telling me.

"What about my aunts or uncles." He shook his head.

"When they got married and had steady jobs they cut themselves off from the rest of their family. Said they weren't going to be a good influence on you."

'At least they would've influenced me.' Was what I thought in response. I knew I shouldn't say it out loud, though. "What about leaving Sawtooth?" He leaned back in his chair.

"The police chief at Jasper just retired, they're looking for a replacement. I volunteered to take that position, but I can't commute 4 hours to Jasper for work every day. So, I'm, no, we are moving to Jasper." He looked at Shima. "Including Shima." Shima's face lit up.

"You mean?"

"Yup, I'm adopting you." Shima practically jumped for joy. She lived in an orphanage down the street from the house. I played with her one time when she was at the playground. Ever since then, she's been coming by the house just to play with me. "Your parents have been telling me how sweet she was and that I could use a child in my life. I was hoping to have one of my own but I'm widowed now." He looked at the ring on his left ring finger. "And this event only made me want to adopt her more." I assumed he was referring to the gang troubles that's been going on in Sawtooth lately. "Here's the deal. You guys are going to have my last name, and you both will be going to a private high school when summer is over."

"Why?" I asked him.

"Basically, we're in a modified form of witness protection. To make others believe we're a family, we're all going to have the same last name. We don't have to change our first names, though. The current story goes there were no survivors in the house and three bodies were found, you're parents' and your's." I didn't like the fact we were lying to the media but if it will help get the Runners off of our back then I supposed it was for the best. "As for going to a private school, your parents saved a lot of money while they were working. I'm talking enough to set you for life if need be. They requested that you go to a private school if they passed away as well as having the rest of the money be inherited to you when you're 21. Until then, I hold on to it and only dip into it when I have to pay for something you need that I cannot afford.." I knew my parents had good jobs and worked a lot, but I was still surprised that they made that much money. "So that's the gameplan if you don't have any questions, we leave tomorrow."

And that was that. We moved into a house in Jasper, Shima and I were considered sisters and enrolled in a private school, and I left all of my past behind me. Including my parents. All I wanted to do was forget about everything that happened and move on, but as much as I try to forget I always somehow have the memories come back to me.

Shima sat in the back seat of the car while I rode in the front. We were being driven to school by Officer Betsey, even though we could've easily walked.

"I got the approval today, you can continue doing airsoft." The only difference now is every time I want to do something I have to have it run by the police. Make sure the company is legit and no one from the Runners hangs out there. That was the first good news I heard all day.

"Hey, bro! We should try to take and elective together this year." It was something I was considering asking her if she didn't mind doing but that statement gave me the answer I was looking for.

"Sure, we'll sign up for one after school lets out." We pulled into the school's driveway and saw many people going to the school.

"Have a good first day at school guys. If anything seems suspicious call me."

"Alright, dad." Shima and I said in unison. Shima and I got out of the car and put our backpacks on. She's already halfway up the stairs before I'm ready to walk in.

"Hurry up big bro! Don't want to be late on our first day." I ignored what she said and looked at the front of the brown bricked school building.

'This is it. The start of my new life." I went up the stairs and inside the school, brimming with confidence.

 **A long intro I know. Not all chatpters will be this long but I'll try and make sure that each one will have interesting content. I'll try not to have to manny 'filler' chapters. Until next time this is ragmanthemadman signing off.**


	2. First contact

**I'm glad that this story already has a good following shortly after it was posted. I'd like to think that It's because I'm getting better at writing but that's for you guys to decide. I've rambled on enough, enjoy the chapter.**

The school was big. I don't mean in size; I mean in the amount of students that go here. The hallways were cramped. I would hate passing when most people would go one way and I would go another against the crowd. I would hate going through that. Although, I was told that this school's schedule system is different from most high schools. For the first day of school, everyone was to head to the auditorium. I had no idea where that was though and neither did Shima.

"Where do we go bro?" She nearly had to shout because of all the commotion around us.

"I'm not sure, maybe we cou…" I was turning to look for a teacher or staff member to ask where to go but as soon as I did, I ran into someone. "Ow," I said while rubbing my forehead. I stood back up and looked down to see who I ran into. It was an Alpha female with blonde hair. "I'm sorry for that." I stuck my hand out to try and help her up but another alpha female stepped in front of me.

"What do you think you're doing?" This time she had golden brown hair. Although, she was about half a foot shorter than I was.

"I was going to help the girl I ran into up." I looked behind her to see how the girl was and she was already being helped up by another person.

"Do you know who you knocked over?" I wanted to respond 'no but I'd like to' but I feel like she wouldn't be amused by what I said.

"No, I don't."

"This is Kate, Kate Wilson. Top scholar and athlete in the school. Ring any bells?"

"Look I just got here so I don't know anybody yet."

"Yeah, why are you giving him the third degree?" Shima but in.

"I'm saying this to protect you, stay away from Kate. Student's see you together they won't like it too much." Like I give a shit what other students think, but I'd rather not have trouble started on the first day of school.

"Alright, I'll stay away." She turned to join up with Kate and her friend but before she was out of range I called to her.

"Hey!" She turned to me. "Where is the auditorium?" I could tell she wanted to facepalm but she held back.

"Follow us, we're heading there ourselves." I started to follow them, although I had kept a considerable following distance behind them.

"You're just going to let them do that?" Shima asked me.

"Yeah, I'd rather not start any drama at this school."

"Understandable, but you should be able to talk to whoever you want to."

"I don't always get that privilege." She kept quiet after I said that. She knew exactly what I meant by that.

"We're here." The trio of girls stopped in front of the door to the auditorium, already packed with people. "We're a little late so seating is going to be limited." We entered the building and only found a row with five seats open in the middle of the auditorium. "Looks like we'll have to sit next to each other." The girls went in the isle first and sat next to Kate. It's like she's always protected by her posse.

"Can I ask what your names are? Might as well know more about the students here.

"Sure. My name is Kiara, you've met Kate…" Well not officially. "… and this is Lilly, her sister." Lilly had White hair. Something that is rare but it looks really cool. It's clear that Lilly isn't in the same grade, though. She looks the same age as Shima.

"Nice to meet you guys. I'm Humphrey Betsey, and this is my sister Shima." Shima waved to the others who waved back. "How come you guys stick to Kate?"

"She's the captain of many sports teams that I happen to be a part of. Because she's very accomplished in what she does she tends to get harassed by guys in the school, so we make sure that doesn't happen. I apologize if I went too far. I'm a little bit overprotective of her." I understood where she was coming from. If Shima was in a similar situation I would've done the same thing.

"No I understand now. I was just confused before because I didn't know the circumstances. Now I do." I noticed Lilly whisper something to Kate who blushed after she was done and Lilly laughed a bit. I heard mic feedback and looked up at the stage. The principal of the school was on stage.

"Hello everyone, and welcome to another year of school at Jasper high." There was scattered applause but none were very enthusiastic. "I can see some new faces coming into the school and for those that are new I welcome you to the Warhawk nation." I leaned over to Kiara and whispered.

"Warhawk Nation?"

"It's our mascot." I let out an audible 'oh' before sitting back up and redirecting my attention back to the principle.

"I'll make this brief so everyone can choose their classes. We're continuing to not have a uniform from last year's student council proposal. This is a privilege, not a right. It can be taken away from you. For those that are new, you might have heard that this school is different than others. That's because classes are completely chosen by you. We do this to prepare students for the freedom of college. While you still must take certain classes, the order in which you take them is up to you. We give you more responsibility to prepare you for the future, whether that'd be college or work. I'll call you up by grade, when I do, proceed to the academic room and meet with a staff member to pick your classes. Once that is done you can stay and check out some of the workshops or head home. Buses don't arrive until noon so for those who take the bus you might want to use that free time to go to a workshop. Especially freshmen and new students. First up, seniors." About a quarter of the auditorium population got up and started to leave the auditorium. I got up with them, along with Kate and Kiara.

"Shima, we'll meet up later. I'll let dad know we got out early."

"What do I do until then?"

"Talk to Lilly, try to make a few friends."

"You know I'm not good at that."

"You're going to have to become good at it. You're going to be forced to work with people you may or may not like. Might as well get to know them a bit." She sighed.

"Ok."

"See you later. Call when you're done so we can meet up later."

"Ok." I left the two girls by themselves and followed Kiara and Kate to the academic center. There was already a line when we got there.

"Guess we have to wait a bit." I commented.

"It's not bad, but you're a transfer student so you'll cut ahead of us any minute now." Kiara responded.

"What do you mean?"

"Transfer students follow me to my office." A lady poked her head out to say. I started to follow her, leaving Kate and Kiara behind. I was the only one who arrived at her office. "Only one transfer senior, huh?"

"I guess so, my name is Humphrey." I stuck out my hand for her to shake.

"Good morning Humphrey, my name is Ms. Goldman. I'm going to be your counselor." She said whilst shaking my hand. "Have a seat." I took a seat at her desk and she typed some things into her computer. "I see that you moved here from Sawtooth. I don't blame you. Sawtooth is getting more and more violent lately."

"Yeah, my parents thought it would be a good idea for me to come here to avoid any drama."

"That excellent. And with a student like you, getting out of there was the right choice. An honors student with your only struggling class being English." School felt too easy for me except for English. Getting work done was a cake walk for me.

"Yeah but they don't teach as strictly as you guys probably do."

"I doubt that. The curriculum is enforced for the country. You have to teach certain things." She clicked on something. "Oh! You've been recommended to take AP Calculus." Math was always my strong suit. Do everything right and you get one solid answer. English to me always felt like if it made sense there was no wrong answer, but at the same time, there is a wrong answer. It got confusing and really hit or miss on assignments and essays.

"Yeah but I don't know if I should. It's a new school and I'm not sure if I can do Calculus."

"You'll do great. That's what I'm here for. If things seem overwhelming, come talk to me and we'll work things out." I nodded my head. "Now that class is two hours long on Wednesday and Friday. Do you prefer a morning class or afternoon class?" I thought about it for a second.

"Morning class." Might as well start the day with a class I'm good at.

"Ok, your math class will be from 8AM to 10AM. I'm just going to fill the rest of your schedule with classes you need to take. Which, isn't a lot." I did summer school every year to get ahead, per my parent's wishes. "Ok, you have to take 5 classes. Senior English at 11AM Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Forensics at 8AM on Tuesday and Thursday. Civics at 1PM every day, but it's a half hour class. And Calculus. Do you plan to do a sport?"

"I wanted to do baseball but that's a spring sport so until then no."

"Then until baseball starts you have to take a physical education class or class substitution."

"Class substitution?"

"A class that has physical activity in it but it isn't gym. JROTC would have to be the most popular one." That sounded interesting.

"What's JROTC?"

"Basically, it's an introduction to the military. You don't have to enlist, but it's geared towards people who have an interest in learning about the military, more specifically the army branch of the military." That sounded a lot more interesting than gym.

"Can I do JROTC?"

"Sure, it's every day at 2PM." She did some more typing and a printer started wiring in the room. When it was finished, she grabbed the paper and gave it to me. "Here's your schedule. The classes, teachers, and room numbers are all on it. Check them out today if you have the chance."

"I will, thank you."

"No problem, you're all set." She stood up from her desk and I did as well. She stuck out her hand to shake. "Have a good school year and feel free to stop by if you need anything." I returned the handshake.

"I will, thank you, Ms. Goldman." I left the office and went out the academic room. When I did, I noticed Kate in the Hallway sniffling. "You ok?" As soon as I asked that she frantically wiped her tears and stood up straight with dignity.

"Yes I am, just got made fun of for my breast size." I couldn't help but sneak a glance at them. They were big. At least a C maybe even a D cup. "Some of the girls thought it was too big and started making up names for them like floaties. I had to step away for a bit."

"Understandable. You're just exercising your right." She looked at me with curiosity.

"What do you mean?"

"Some people can just leave a room or building to escape prejudice, others can't. It follows them wherever they go and they have to deal with it." She looked shocked when I said that.

"I never thought about it like that. Now I feel like I was weak for doing that."

"No, it's not like that. It's just that some people wish to have that privilege and they can't. We have to do things ourselves. No hand holding."

"I understand. Thank you."

"No need to thank me. I'm just sharing some facts. And sorry for running into you earlier."

"No need to apologize. I'm sorry that Kiara gave you the third degree."

"I just didn't know the circumstances. It's cool." I felt myself getting gradually more nervous as I talked to her. Not sure why. "Do you have any plans after school today?"

"Yeah, I have to condition for cheerleading."

"I thought sports didn't start until next week."

"You're right but I'm the captain so I have to be ready. I'll most likely be in the weight room and the track after school." I wondered why she was taking it so seriously. I understand being serious about a sport but you shouldn't have it on your mind 24/7.

"Why not have some fun?" She looked at me confused.

"Fun? I don't have time for that. I have to be the best in school and athletics."

"Why?"

"Excuse me?"

"Why do you have to work 24/7 to be the best at something? While your drive is admirable, you shouldn't stress over it. Come with me after school, we can have fun and you'll be conditioned." She thought long and hard about it.

"Fine. I'll tag along. You got me curious anyway." I did a fist pump in my head.

"Great, you won't regret it." I pulled my phone out and called Officer Betsey or dad.

"Humphrey? What's up?"

"School is getting out early. Could we get picked up early? Also, could I hang out with a… acquaintance after school?"

"Uh, ok, yes, and who's the acquaintance?"

"I'm sure there's nothing to worry about." I whispered.

"Fine, text the name to me. I'll be there in a half hour." The click on the other end notified me that he hung up.

"You don't mind stopping by my house so I can change do you?" I took a closer look at what she was wearing. She had a ruffled skirt and a button up shirt. "You should probably change too." she blushed.

"I don't mind but all I have to change into is my workout clothes. I have sweatpants and a t-shirt." It was better than wearing a skirt and button up.

"That'll work. Don't want you getting hurt." She looked at me confused. "You'll see what I mean later." Kiara also came out of the office and got next to Kate.

"Why are you out here? Did something happen?" Kiara asked with concern.

"No nothing happened. I just finished making my schedule early."

"We should head to the gym before the other students flood the hallway." Kiara said. I started to follow the girls to the gym.

"The hallway isn't normally that packed during the school year, is it?"

"No, it's never that pack after the first day. Except maybe homecoming." I was relieved at that. Trying to navigate through crowded hallways is a pain.

"Any reason why you're going to the gym in particular?"

"We're going to practice some basketball. Do you play?" Kiara responds.

"No, not really."

"Really? But you're so tall." I was six feet tall. Kiara and Kate were around 5'7-5'8.

"I know, but I don't have the skill."

"Do you play any sport?"

"I play baseball, and I bowl." They both looked at me questioningly.

"Is that even a sport?" Kiara asked.

"Bowling?" She nodded. "Yeah, it is. I've been doing it for several years now."

"I want to see you play sometime." Kate said. That reminded me that I wanted to find a league nearby.

"I'll let you know when I play." When that conversation finished, we arrived at the gym. Most of the lights were off except for the ones the were above the entrance we walked through. The lights must have been motion activated.

"I'll get a few balls." Kiara made her way to the closet to grab some basketballs.

"I'm going to go change." Kate told me as she went into the girl's locker room. Kiara already had sweats and a t-shirt on so I doubt she was going to change. She tossed a few basketballs my way and I stopped two of them and picked up the last one for myself. It's been a while since I held a basketball let alone play it. I hoped that they wouldn't be too critical of me.

"Well, show me what you got." I got nervous right there. I was always self-conscious about things I was unsure of. Basketball is one of those things. I dribbled the ball a bit. I didn't fumble with it which was a good thing on my part. "Not bad. let's see you shoot." I dribbled the ball to the three point line and took a shot. The ball ended up hitting the backboard too hard and came right back to me. "Put more of an arc on it along with a spin. You're pushing the ball out of your hands." She did her own shot to demonstrate. The ball traveled in an arc and had a slight backspin to it. She didn't even hit the backboard. It was all net. "Like that." I steadied myself for another shot and tried to mimic what she did. The ball hit off the backboard and bounced around the hoop before going in.

"Like that?"

"The technique was almost flawless. It's just a matter of aiming and power. Shooters are often taught to not hit the backboard because if they take a baseline shot they can't use the backboard. But if you're still perfecting your shot, the backboard is your friend." I gave it another go and although the ball hit off the backboard I was able to make it in. "Nice shot. If anyone calls you a backboard abuser, just wear the title with pride for now because you're probably doing better than they are. The more you practice, the less you need the backboard." I nodded in understanding. I never thought about playing basketball for the school, but I wouldn't mind doing it recreationally. Every little tip helps to not look like a total noob on the court.

"Thank you."

"No problem." Kate got out of the locker room wearing her sweatpants, which were rather thick, and a t-shirt with the Hawk on it. Probably showing some school spirit. "Hey Kate, this guy isn't that bad when it comes to playing. Can we use him for practice?" I was unsure what she meant by that.

"I don't see why we can't. Are you ok with it?" I shrugged.

"I guess not." Kate and Kiara lined up at the top of the key.

"We're going to charge the hoop just play defense and try to stop us." I nodded understanding what they're trying to do. Kiara was first. I tried to keep up with her as she went towards the hoop but I failed miserably. Kate was next and it was pretty much a mirror of what happened with Kiara. "What was that?"

"What?"

"Why didn't you get a little physical?" Kate cleared up. I rubbed the back of my neck. There was a reason why I didn't give it my all against them.

"Is it because we're females?" I shook my hand.

"Sort of."

"Then, why?" Kiara pushed me to answer.

"Because, I haven't had good experiences playing sports with females."

"Oooh, do tell." Kiara sat down on the ball and gave all her attention to me. Kate just stood with the ball in her arm against her hip.

"In middle school females had to play the same sports as the guys. It was fine for games like badminton or tennis, but when we got to sports like soccer and football, it got difficult, especially for me. a couple times when I actually tried to play against females I had a lot of moments where one of two things happen, I hurt the female, or I end up in an awkward situation, usually with me touching a body part I shouldn't touch. Nine times out of ten I was blamed for it. I wasn't liked by most females or guy friends of said females because of those situations, which made middle school a bitch for me."

"That's understandable, but this is high school. We know the circumstances behind what you're doing. So don't worry too much about it."

"Thank's for the confidence but I'd rather avoid anything that could lead to what happen in middle school, at least for now. Maybe some other day when we're all more comfortable with each other."

"Ok, c'mon Kate, let's do some conditioning then." Kate and Kiara put the balls back in the closet and started to do suicides, willingly. I'm surprised they're that dedicated to their sports. My phone vibrated so I decided to check what message I received. It was from Shima.

S: _Where are you? I finished with my schedule._

H: _I'm in the gym with Kate and Kiara. Officer Betsey, is on his way to get us soon._

S: _K, why don't you call him dad?_

H: _You can call him dad. I'm not ready to call him that._

S: _I get it, I'll be waiting out front._

H: _K, just so you know, we're going to have an extra guest with us in the car._

S: _Already making friends? It's not as bad as you thought, isn't it._

H: _I guess not, but it's just the first day._

S: _Cheer up, come hang with me until dad comes._

H: _All right, I'll be there soon._

I put my phone away and went to wait until Kate and Kiara finished their suicides. I lost track of how much they did because I was texting Shima. All I know is it was enough for both of them to be really tired.

"Kate, my dad's almost here so I'm going to get going." Something told me she didn't want me to announce our plans later on.

"Ok, I'm going to leave as well."

"I gotta wait for the bus. You're lucky you have rides." Kate gave Kiara a hug.

"See you tomorrow." Kate started walking to the door.

"See ya Kate." Kate and I went to the front of the school.

"Thanks for accepting to hang out."

"It's not a big deal. I just don't want my time to be wasted."

"Trust me, you won't regret it." We got outside the school and I spotted Shima walking to Jerome's car. "That's our ride." I opened the passenger door for her and allowed her to sit before closing the door for her. I got in the back seat with Shima.

"Hi, Kate." Shima said. Kate waved back at her and said hey back.

"Hello Kate, I'm Jerome Betsey, their father."

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Betsey." After introductions were made Jerome, started to drive back home.

"So how was the first day?" Jerome asked while looking at the rearview mirror.

"Nothing much happened. All we did was make our schedules." I responded.

"I see, I'll have to ask tomorrow then." He joked. I rolled my eyes. It didn't take long to make it home. We pulled into the driveway and got out of the car. Kate made a comment.

"You live here?" We all nodded. "I live down the street."

"Really? That's good to know." I commented. "You can come inside to wait, I need to give you something anyway." She followed us inside the house and I led her upstairs. "Wait here." I said before closing the door behind me. I quickly got out of what I was wearing and put on a blue long sleeve shirt with an American flag and SWAT logo on different sleeves, with cargo pants, and navy blue boots. I grabbed my airsoft 'go bag' which had the rest of my gear inside, and I grabbed a gun case out of the back of my closet along with a SWAT jacket. When I opened the door Kate was on her phone. She looked up when she heard the door close.

"I don't have to dress like that do I?"

"No this is just how I prefer to dress. Also, you'll need this." I handed her the gun case in my hand. "Don't open it yet, wait till we get to our destination. You probably want this too." I gave her the SWAT jacket.

"It's not that cold out."

"It's not for the cold." I led her back downstairs. "Dad, we're heading out. Be back in a few hours."

"Alright son, stay safe." I closed the door behind me and started to walk down the street.

"Can't we drive there?"

"It's only a few blocks away, we can walk."

"You don't have your license, huh?"

"Actually I do, I just don't have my own car yet."

"Uh huh." Kate and I walked to our destination while making some small talk. Mainly it was some basic stuff like favorite food, color, music, etc.

"We're here." She looked at the sign that was in front of a large building.

"Tactical airsoft? That's what you wanted me to do?"

"Yeah, it's fun and it'll give you a workout." We walked into the building and was greeted with a shop filled with airsoft weapons and gear. I went over to the front desk to pay for field use.

"You sure you can pay for me?"

"Yeah, it's no problem." I paid the $60 total to the cashier. $40 for both of us to use the field and $20 for Kate to rent a mask. She had a choice between a paintball mask and a separate goggle and face mask. She chose the separate goggles and face mask.

"I don't know Humphrey, I've never done this before."

"It's simple. We'll be given a scenario for a game and we just have to accomplish said scenario. If you get hit just raise your gun up in the air and say that you're hit."

"I know how to play, I've seen youtube videos on it. I'm just scared of getting hit." I understood where she was coming from. A lot of new players don't want to get hit.

"That's why I gave you the jacket. It only hurts if you get hit on bare skin." I deliberately didn't mention getting hit in the knuckles. It most likely wouldn't happen plus it hurts like a bitch even with gloves.

"Ok, I'll take your word for it." We walked into a room before the arena that had a bunch of workbenches to set our gear down. I found a random one and put my gear down along with Kate's. I quickly put on my plate carrier, knee pads, and elbow pads on along with my gloves and helmet. I saved my face mask until the game started. Kate opened up the case I gave her and revealed the AK-74S, my first airsoft gun.

"Wow, this is cool!" Kate said inspecting the gun. "But uh, how do you use it?"

"Ok, just a few things to keep in mind, your safety is here. Don't turn off the safety until we're in the arena. When we are in the arena after every hundred shots or so there's a wheel underneath the magazine you have to turn a few times to feed the gun more BBs. If the gun isn't working come find me and I'll see what's wrong with it. That's it for now."

"Ok, I'll do my best."

"Just remember, we're here to have fun."

"Yeah, fun to me is dominating the other team." I chuckled a bit at that. We heard a whistle blow which signified the start of a new game. Kate and I went to the entrance of the arena to hear the briefing.

"Alright, this game is team deathmatch. Three lives per person, the first team to eliminate the other team wins. Split up equally." Kate and I followed the team that looked a little short on people. All of us got red bandanas to signify what team we're on.

"I don't think I need to tell you to not shoot at the guys with red bandanas on."

"Of course you don't. You don't mind if I stick with you this round, do you?" She asked sounding a little shy which did not seem like her.

"I don't mind, probably best for your first time playing anyway." I remembered when I first played airsoft, one guy was doing really well so I ended up following him around the field. "Oh, I almost forgot, when you are within 6 feet of someone you're supposed to do a bang-bang kill." She nodded. I assumed that she knew how to do that considering she's watched videos on airsoft before. The referees blew their whistles to start the game and everyone was off and running. I decided to go left to see if I can get off a flank on the people that rushed. As I rounded a corner there were two members of the enemy team rushing towards me. I took some shots at them while moving into cover. I wasn't able to hit either of them but I made them aware of my presence. They didn't see Kate, though. "Kate there's two by the car. Think you can sneak around the edge of the arena to catch them off guard?" She gave me a nod.

"Leave it to me." She sneaks off to the side and I take a quick peek to see where they are. My head just makes it back to cover as BBs came flying at my position. From what I was able to see and where the direction of the BBs came from, I concluded that they were taking cover behind the white truck. Blind firing is against the rules here so I instead go prone and peak out from the side of my cover. I was able to suppress them but not hit them. I heard a familiar sound of gunfire followed by both players calling their hits. I peek them again just to make sure and both of them had their hands up and were walking back to spawn. I followed the same path Kate did in order to catch up to her.

"Good job."

"Thanks, I'm enjoying this." I didn't want to tell her that this is one of those days where only the casual players come out. If we came on a weekend, we'll have a different experience.

"Before they get back, let's take out as many people as we can from behind." She nodded eagerly. We went around to the other side of the field and shot many players in their backs. We eventually got taken out after people got back on the fight and we were pincered.

The matches went on. Most of them we won and some we didn't. Kate wanted to know why my gun was different than hers and I told her that it was a gas blowback instead of an airsoft electric gun (AEG) like her's. I didn't recommend she get one though until she got used to using an AEG and if she wanted to get a little more realism out of it. We were at the field for a few hours and decided to do one last game before we left. It was going well, team deathmatch just like the first game we played, but there were some very toxic players on the other team. They had a habit of not calling their hits which made it very frustrating. On the last wave of spawns, something happened that was specifically targeted at me. I was shot, I called my hit, I started to walk off the field. I kept getting hit. The guys that shot me had kept firing at me. I looked around to see if I was in the way of an engagement but there was no one for them to shoot. It's one thing for me to get in the middle of a firefight and get shot, but there is no one for them to shoot at.

"Dead man walking!" I called out to try and stop them shooting at me, but to know affect. The referee walked by and glanced at our direction but immediately turned a blind eye. I kept getting shot as I got off the field. I didn't want to start a confrontation so I found Kate as quickly as I could and packed my stuff quickly. Kate tried to get my attention but I was too focused on getting out of there. On the way out I got bumped into by someone.

"Watch it mega." I recognized the clothing. It was the same guy that was shooting at me. He was an Alpha and was built. I ignored him and left the building to head home.

"What was that?" Kate asked.

"Those guys kept shooting at me even after I called my hit. It was clear they were trying to inflict harm, and that shoulder check he did to me on the way out confirmed that." Kate was a little angry.

"Why didn't you retaliate. You can't let people treat you like that.

"You don't understand."

"I think I do, you're scared." I chuckled.

"You're right, but not of them. If I retaliated, no matter if I won or lost, I would be blamed." Kate looked at me confused.

"But it wasn't your fault."

"It doesn't matter. I'm an Omega, they're alphas, they're already favored by other people. If the cops got involved, I would be the one treated harshly. It wouldn't be the first time." Kate got upset.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know."

"Not a lot of alphas do, they turn a blind eye and some do it themselves. What makes me mad are the other omegas that don't take it seriously, calling each other racial slurs. It's no wonder alphas do it to us because we do it to ourselves. It was starting to get a little late, but part of me didn't want to end it on this note. "Do you wanna grab dinner?"

"Sorry Humphrey. It's been fun but I think I'm going to head home for the night." I understood. With what went down and what I told her about omegas, she might not like to hang out with me anymore. She might not think the same of omegas either.

"I understand. I'll walk you home." I took her to the front door of her house. Before she unlocked the door to get in she tried to give back my gun. "Keep it, in case you want to go back on your own. I have more." While that was true, I wanted to get rid of it for a while. It reminded me too much of my parents. They're the ones that got it for me after all.

"Thank you. See you tomorrow Humphrey."

"See you tomorrow Kate." I walked back to my house and let myself in.

"Hey son, how was airsoft?"

"It was good." Other than what happened during the last game it was a fun time.

"I ordered pizza, there's still slices in the box." I grabbed some slices and went into my room to eat them. After eating I showered and got ready to go to sleep. That experience pretty much sapped any motivation of me for doing anything. I watched youtube videos on my phone until sleep took over.

 **I appologize for being so late with this. I got swamped with essays and writing assignments and by the time I'm done with those I lose motivation to write. I even worked on this instead of an essay and that did not end well with my proffesor. Winter break is coming though so please bear with me until then. I'll try to get another chapter up before then but I can't promise anything. Until next time this is ragmanthemadman signing off.**


	3. Date? part 1

**Glad the story is being well received so far. Updates are gonna get more frequent over break I promise. Finals are almost over, and I'll be back home before you know it.**

 **Guest: is it still incest if they aren't related by blood?**

The rest of the school week went by with no trouble. I got used to the classes fairly quickly and I even think I can get the hang of English with the teacher I had. What was, and at the same time was not, a surprise to me was that Kate was in all of my classes except for English. Guess who accompanied her, Kiki. Those two appear to be inseparable. They must plan this stuff out. For every class, Kate sits in the corner with Kiki next to her. The only exception to this was JROTC, and boy was I in for a surprise. Kate turned out to be the school's battalion commander. If you don't know what that is, basically she's got the highest rank of all the cadets and is in charge of all of them. A pretty sweet gig if I do say so myself.

Anyway, now it's the weekend and I was just laying on my bed trying to see if I can find a bowling alley near me. There was one not too far away called round one. It was more of a bowling alley/entertainment facility but they did have a junior league. It started at 11 AM too. Taking a glance at the time on my phone I noticed that it was 9:30 AM. Not wanting to miss out on signing up, I got out of my bed and went to take a quick shower. As soon as I get to the door to the bathroom. Shima steps out with her body wet and a towel wrapped around her body.

"Moring bro!" She told me enthusiastically. A morning person, I am not, but it was clear to me that Shima was.

"Morning Shima. You done with the bathroom?"

"I was about to get some stuff from my room to do my hair. Need to shower?" I nodded. "Go ahead then." I looked at her confused. "What?"

"You won't try and prank me or something while I'm showering right?"

"Who do you take me for Humphrey? I just want to do my hair and try and go out. Maybe with you?"

"I'm going to a bowling alley to join a league."

"Great! I've always wanted to try bowling competitively. I even have the ball your parents gave me." I'm surprised she held on to it considering that she had no way of doing any bowling herself. She had to go with us when we went. Which meant she had to sneak out of the orphanage with a 12-pound bowling ball, which couldn't have been easy.

"That's good to hear. Alright let me by so I can get ready. The league starts at 11 and I want to get there early so we can sign up." Shima stepped aside and let me through the door. I closed it behind me but not before seeing Shima's behind as she walked away. Her tail was erect and lifted the back part of her towel, exposing her… derriere. It didn't help that she was wet either. I shook my head to shake off whatever thoughts I was getting and quickly got in the shower before she came back. When she came back I was already lathering my body with soap. "What took you so long? I thought you only had to grab a couple of things.

"I was messaging Lilly, she bowls with Kate at a bowling alley called Round One. Is that where we're going?"

"Actually, yeah. What a coincidence huh?"

"Seems like we can't avoid them. You should go out with Kate." I almost stumbled in the shower, which did not go unnoticed. "You ok?" I can see her silhouette looking at me.

"Yeah I'm fine. C'mon Kate and I would never work out. Plus you heard Kiki, I should stay away from her."

"Yet you hung out with her at an airsoft arena."

"Just to try and show her a good time. She was stressing about something that didn't need to be stressed over." Although I was attracted to Kate, the thought of me being with her starting drama was something that made me hold back when I'm with her.

"I'm just saying, from someone you were told to stay away from you're around her a lot."

"Being in the same class doesn't count."

"If you say so." I ignored her comments and continued my shower. It didn't take long for her to do her hair and she was out the bathroom before I got out of the shower. I put on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and went downstairs to get breakfast. I noticed officer Betsey sleeping on the couch with his laptop on the table and some folders stacked next to it. "Did he pull an all-nighter again?" Shima asked noticing me staring at Officer Betsey as she came down the stairs.

"Guess so, always bringing work home. He needs a vacation."

"We should take one together!" She said excitedly.

"Don't be so loud you'll wake him. And besides, what can we do when we're supposed to be laying low."

"You make it seem like going on a vacation is something that's out of the ordinary."

"No, but it is something that makes become exposed. It takes only one wrong person to see us for stuff to go wrong." She wanted to refute but she knew I was right. We both ended up eating cereal, lucky charms for her and cinnamon toast crunch for me. When we finished we got our stuff and was about to head out the door but one of the balls in my bag shifted and it stirred Officer Betsey awake.

"Hey, where are you guys going?" He asked while being groggy.

"We're going to sign up for a league at Round 1."

"Oh really? I know the owner. If he's there let him know I said hi." He immediately fell back to sleep afterward. Shima and I both chuckled a bit at that. We got to the car and I started driving to our destination. I didn't drive much after we moved to sawtooth. I drove my car here, but after that, I didn't touch it much. I pretty much walked anywhere I wanted to go. The car isn't anything special, a blue 1999 Saturn SL1. A car that still has roll up windows. Thing is, I love it. It's my first car and it's a hand me down from my parents. Needless to say, I don't want to get rid of it anytime soon. I avoided using it because it reminded me too much of my parents. While I haven't fully moved on from it, I'm far enough that using items that my parents got me don't remind me of the episode that got me here in the first place.

* * *

The car ride was relatively quiet. Shima plugged her phone into the car using a cassette adapter and played some of her favorite songs. She and I are really into electronic dance music so she played a lot of that. Invincible by Def Kev and Blu by Mitis just to name a couple that played during the ride. Arriving at the bowling alley I immediately noticed a few things. Firstly, round one was more of an entertainment center than just a bowling alley. They only had 20 lanes (Not a lot for a bowling alley), they had a pretty big arcade, and the lanes were set up more like lounge spots than traditional bowling chairs and benches. We both went to the front desk to sign up for the league and the guy at the desk, who obviously would rather have been somewhere else, helped us through the process. Here's the convenient part, there are 4 members per team and there was one team that had two spots open. Guess who was on that team… yup, Kate, and Lilly. We got there a little too early so we decided to bowl a game just to get back in the swing of things.

"What ball do you use?" Shima asked me. It's been a while since she and I have bowled. I did get a new ball since last time.

"Arson High Flare." I pulled a red and yellow ball out of my bag.

"Wow! So cool! The colors on it look great." While the color of the ball is pretty cool, I was more interested in how it performed. Shima had a pink Brunswick bowling ball. It wasn't sold for long so it's pretty rare to see. Not a bad starter ball either. On the first ball that I rolled, it ended up in the gutter. "Ha! What happened to the 200 average bowler you bragged about being?" I used to average 205 but it's been a few months since I last picked up a bowling ball.

"I'll get it back, I've just been away for a while." To prove my point I threw a perfect strike, err a spare in that case. "See."

"Yeah, yeah show off why don't ya."

"Do you want me to do good or bad? I'm getting mixed signals here." She chuckled a bit at my comment. She didn't do much better either, she didn't throw a gutterball like I did, but she only got three pins.

"Lose your edge?" Shima shot me a glare.

"Shush, I'm warming up."

"You can't use my excuse against me."

"You didn't say that as your excuse."

"Didn't I?"

"No, you didn't." She grabbed her ball and did a follow-up shot knocking down the seven pins that she left behind. "See? I'm warm already." I rolled my eyes at that and continued to practice. I ended up with with a 170 and Shima had a 122.

"Ok, I shouldn't go below that in league play now."

"I did ok."

"Yeah you did, that's around your average if you had one." We packed up our equipment and moved to our assigned lanes. We were still waiting for practice to start so we just played around on our phones. I was in the middle of watching a youtube video when I was interrupted by a black and dark red ball blocking my vision. "Hammer legend. Latest bowling ball in the hammer series." I looked up and saw Kate looking down at me with a smile.

"Jealous?" Her rack was blocking the lower half of her head. All I could see was her eyes. Well, I was trying my best to keep my eyes on hers.

"Very, it's a nice ball." The shine from the finish of the ball made it look even more appealing.

"Lilly told me you guys were bowling here. Figured that they would place you on our team to make it even."

"Why did you have two free spots?"

"A lot of people sign up together with friends and family. Lilly and I were the only two that wanted to bowl so we signed up together. Every other team was filled so they just made a team with just us two and two vacancies." Vacant bowlers are automated to score a specific score every game. For this league, it's 150.

"So we just happened to be a coincidence to make the league even?"

"Basically, yes." It's starting to get weird that Kate and I are getting together like this. Same classes, we live near each other, and we're on the same bowling team. It's like some unknown force is pushing me and Kate together. I'm attracted to her, but do I like her?

"Attention Junior bowlers, your lanes are on for practice." The intercom blared out to the center. Kate place her ball on the ball return and got her shoes on along with Lilly. Shima and I already started practice since we have our shoes on already. For some reason, I felt a need to want to impress Kate. I took extra time to line up my shots, which didn't work out in my favor. My shots were even more off than they were at the start of our practice game. Kate was a very graceful bowler. She looked serious but loose. Her approach and release were by-the-book and at the same time had her own personal touch to it. I couldn't help but stare at her and how she bowled. I'll admit that I was attracted to her before, but now, I think I love her. I stopped bowling stiff and started having fun with it. My game instantly improved.

"You're pretty good Humphrey. Been bowling for a while?"

"Since I was six, but it's been a minute since I've bowled in a league." Shima but into our conversation.

"I've only been bowling for a couple of years, but this is the first time I've bowled in a league."

"You're pretty good for your first time in a league. Did you learn how to hook your ball yet?"

"I'm trying to learn but it's difficult to do consistently so I just bowl straight until I develop it more in practice."

"I see, maybe Lilly can teach you. She just started to hook regularly." Lilly heard her name being called and stopped her approach to respond.

"My name was called?"

"Would you be willing to teach Shima how to hook properly?"

"Sure, when does she want to do it?"

"How about after the league?" Shima responds excitedly.

"Ok, but what's Kate going to do?" I asked.

"Don't worry about it. We always hang out here after bowling anyway. We spend almost all day here." Kate responds.

"Doing what?"

"I'll show you after." She went back to bowling to signal an end to the conversation. When practice was over we realized that the opposing team wasn't here. One of the coaches came to us and explained that the team we were supposed to face today had a prior engagement and couldn't make it. We set all the bowlers as absent and bowled without them. Absent bowlers are like vacancies except the score that's put for them is their average minus five. For example, if I had an 180 average, 175 would be put for my score if I was absent.

We won all three games, mainly due to the fact that no matter what Shima and I bowled the handicap they give us will equal the league average. This is only for the first week, though. I bowled a 211 which was pretty good but I didn't get over 200 after that. Kate did phenomenal, bowling a 253 and a 265, she ran out of gas and only got 201 after but that was still very impressive compared to her 204 average. Lilly had an average of 164 and didn't get too far above or below that score today. And Shima…

… did pretty bad.

She was not consistent at all. Her best game today was a 120. Not terrible but not up to par with her skill level either. She beat herself up about it too which led to her doing worse than the 120.

"Hey, we'll work on it. We all have our off days." Lilly tried to console her. "C'mon I'll get us a lane so we can start practice." Shima didn't move at first so Lilly had to pull her up and drag her to the front desk.

"So, are you going to show me what you do here after bowling?" Kate zipped her bag up and stood it up beside her.

"Of course, but you don't need your bowling equipment." I nodded and followed her outside the building dragging my bowling equipment behind me. I put my equipment in the trunk of my car which happened to be right next to Kate's. "Saturn? Not bad for your first car." I noticed that her car was a 2011 Buick Lucerne.

"That's a brand new car! How did you get that?" Kate rubbed the back of her head.

"My dad inherited a lot of money from his late uncle. He tends to spoil Lilly and I even though we don't ask for it."

"You're better behaved than some other rich people I've run into."

"We're not rich per-say, we're just wealthier than the average person." Latest ball, decent car, high academic and athletic achievements, it just spells high expectations to me. If that's the case, there's no way her parents would ever let her date someone like me. Especially if they knew of my past.

"Glad to know you're not smug about it like some other rich people."

"I'd like to think I'm not. Glad to see that someone else thinks so." We went back inside and she led me over to the arcade area. When we were walking through the arcade I noticed a very obvious theme. All of the games in the arcade were made by Konami, most of them were rhythm based. There weren't a whole lot of people since it was still early in the morning, but there were some kids playing games like Beatmania and Dance Dance Revolution, or DDR for short. Kate brought me to a white DDR machine that said DDR A on the screen. It looked brand new and in near mint condition. "Ever play this before?"

"I've played DDR before but not this kind."

"Really? Which one?"

"Extreme was my main one but I played Supernova a couple of times as well. This must be a new machine." I looked over all of the features. Speakers that flashed a rainbow of colors caught my attention. The older machines that I played only had flashing spotlights. This machine really shouted 'here I am, play me', and that's exactly what Kate and I were about to do.

"I play this machine every time we come here. I can play it for hours I have that much fun with it." She pulled a game card out of her pocket and put it into the machine. Once she did that the name of the game appeared on the screen with an announcer saying "Dance Dance Revolution!" in an enthusiastic voice. Kate pushed a green button surrounded by directional buttons under the screen. There was a prompt on the screen that asked for something called an E-Amusement pass. Kate pulled another card out of her pocket and put it on a circle that was next to the pad that seemed to have a scanner on it. The machine read the card and stated that it was connecting to something, most likely and online server.

"This uses online multiplayer?"

"Sort of. This…" She showed her E-Amusement pass "…keeps track of my high scores on songs along with other players. This gives us some competition against other players. It also gives us access to more songs and the opportunity to play on an extra stage. Did you want to play with me?"

"Sure, but I don't have a game card."

"I'll pay for you, I have plenty of points on this card so don't worry about it. As for the pass you don't need it to play, but if you're going to play as much as I do then you might want to get one." She put her card into the machine again and I saw that she had 400 points on the card. The game took 4 points to play, she had plenty of points. She put in a code in the keypad on the far side of the machine. After checking the code the machine said verified and showed Kate's username and card number. Her username was Konami which confused me.

"Why is your username Konami? Isn't that the name of the company that made this game?"

"I ran out of time making my username and I'm not sure how to change it yet." After confirming her identity the game displayed the warning screen which warned against extreme play. After staying on screen for a few seconds, a tutorial song came up on screen.

"I know how to play. You can skip it if you want to." Pressing the green button the tutorial stopped playing and a prompt came up on the screen saying enjoy DDR a crowd cheering going along with it. The song list was massive. Most of the songs on the machine I've never seen before.

"Take a look, pick a song you know from extreme or supernova to start off with. Get back in the groove of things. Pun intended." I chuckled a bit at that and tried to search for a song I was used to. "Let me help you out." She pressed a number on the pad and a menu popped up with the title 'search by' on top with multiple options below it. She pressed series and immediately the machine sorted the songs by folders of the machines they debuted on. I scrolled to extreme and searched for the first song that came to mind, Love Shine. "Cool choice. I used to play this all the time when I first started out."

"Same here. It was one of my favorites." I selected the song and the game asked for me to choose my difficulty. Kate chose expert, I didn't want to look like a fool but at the same time I didn't want to look like a total noob. I normally played on Basic but for this time I chose difficult which was one higher than Basic. When both of our difficulties were locked in Kate modded the game and chose to speed up the chart a bit. When she was satisfied with her settings the song appeared on screen with '1st stage' displayed underneath it. I looked over and saw something I haven't seen before. Kate put her hands on the bar behind her and started to make the beat of the song with her feet. I looked back to the screen in time to catch the steps appearing on screen. I was doing fairly well. Happy that I didn't lose touch with the song. I couldn't help but keep glancing over at Kate and seeing her do the expert chart so flawlessly while using the bar. When the song ended I asked her about it.

"Hey, why do you hold the bar?" She instantly blushed.

"I didn't have to at first, but when puberty hit and I started to develop, I had to in order to avoid attention." She crossed her arms over her chest to make her point. I understood why she does that. With all the jumping movements you do without the bar, her chest would be bouncing all over the place. I felt hot just thinking about it. Unfortunately for me, Kate knew. "You were thinking about it weren't you?" I just slowly shook my head which wasn't very convincing. "Yes, you were!"

"I'm sorry, you're just really attractive…" I stopped there. I didn't want to expose my true feelings. Best case scenario, she rejects them, worst case scenario, she feels the same. It's better for her if I'm not that close. Of course, at the same time, it's a little late for that. "…you're not mad are you?" She snapped out of some daydream she was in that I didn't even realize she slipped into.

"No, but that shouldn't go unpunished. She picked a song named pluto and put my difficulty to difficult. I wouldn't have opposed at first but then I noticed that the difficulty was rated a 12. The last song we did was a six. "You have to do this song on this difficulty, if you can finish without failing I'll forgive you."

"And if I fail?"

"If you fail…" she pondered for a second. "You have to take me to dinner." I gulped. Part of me honestly wanted to fail.

"Ok, deal." She smirked as she hit the green button to start the song. The song was very slow. I was easily able to keep up with the steps on the screen. Then it got faster. It caught me off guard but I was still able to keep up. Then the song just made an absolute fool out of me. There were many stops throughout the song that tripped me up bad. Unless you've played this song beforehand and memorized the stops, there's no way you'll do well on it. Needless to say, I failed pretty early on. Kate finished almost flawlessly. At the score screen, she whispered into my ear.

"Pick me up at 6:00?" I nodded. This was exactly what I wanted to avoid, but it can't be helped. On the bright side, I think the girl I like likes me back.

 **Probably a weaker conclusion than I'd like but I wanted to get this out as quick as I could. Hope you guys enjoyed part one of this chapter. Part two will come out within a week. Until next time this is ragmanthemadman signing off.**


	4. Date? part 2

**I'm so sorry for being late. I'll tell you why at the end.**

 **Enjoy!**

The next couple of hours was spent with Kate destroying me in DDR. She did help me get better by telling me to use both my feet equally, I was using my right foot way more than my left and after I changed my style songs quickly became easier to do. I still wasn't on Kate's level but she said that I could with practice. An hour in Lilly and Shima found us playing and played a bit themselves, neither one doing really well. Lilly said she was better at a game called Beatmania. A game with 7 buttons, 4 white, 3 black, and a turntable. It's a rhythm game like DDR but with more of a DJ feel to it. Missing notes causes the song to not play the note that was missed. Something DDR doesn't do. Shima seemed to take a liking to the game as well. She was able to understand the game quickly but wasn't at the same level as Lilly. I could see how they're able to spend their whole Saturday's here now. Around four pm we started to leave. On my way to the car, Kate reminded me about our date which wasn't very subtle but went unnoticed by Shima and Lilly.

* * *

When we got home Shima immediately went to her room, probably to text Lilly since the two have become great friends in a short time. I wondered where to go for dinner with Kate. I didn't want to go somewhere extremely fancy but I didn't want to be cheap either. I decided on Olive Garden which was nice but not too expensive. I took a quick shower to get the sweat off from playing DDR, and I put on a button up and a tie along with dress pants. I'm usually not formal but Kate deserved it. What made me really nervous was the fact that I would have to go to her house. I hope that she or Lilly answers the door and not one of her parents. I'm not sure how they would react to me picking up their daughter for a date. When I was ready to go, I went downstairs. Jerome was out at work and Shima was still in her room so I was able to sneak out without being noticed. I brought my car to the front of her house, got out, and walked to her door. I rang the doorbell and waited. My heart pounded in my chest from the nerves I was feeling. I heard locks being unlocked and the door opened to reveal Kate.

"5:58, you're a little early." She stood there in a red dress. One strap over her shoulder keeping it above her chest. A long skirt went past her knees covering up most of her legs. My jaw dropped at her gorgeous figure. She snapped her fingers to stop me from staring.

"I like to be on time. definitely did not want to keep you waiting. You look gorgeous by the way."

"I could tell by the way you were staring at me. I know it seems a little over the top but this is one of my less formal, formal clothes." I already wanted to know why she had more than one set of formal clothes. I only have one suit because I don't use it much. She closed the door behind her and walked to my car. Being the gentleman that I am, I opened the passenger door for her. "Thank's Humphrey." She got in the car and I closed the door for her. I quickly dashed to the driver door and got in my car. Once our seatbelts were on we drove off. "So where are we headed?"

"Olive Garden."

"I figured it would be that or Red Lobster. Formal but not too formal, right?"

"Yeah actually." It got quiet for a minute and it felt a little awkward so I tried to continue the conversation. "So, why do you have so many dresses?"

"Why do you assume I have a large number of them?"

"You said this dress is one of your least formal ones so you have at least a couple more."

"Very observative. I have a lot of dresses because of my dad's line of work. He runs a company and because of that, he gets invited to a lot of formal parties and auctions. He likes to have support from his family when he goes to those events."

"I see. Sounds like it can get boring at times."

"Not how I like to spend weekends, but I love my dad and the least I can do is be there for him when he needs his family."

"I understand."

"So what about you? I feel like I don't know much about you."

"My dad works as a police officer so he's not home too often. It's usually just me and my sister."

"What about your mother?" She asked. I sighed in response.

"Our mother passed away." Kate gasped and covered her mouth when I told her that.

"I'm so sorry. I didn't know."

"It's alright, we're over it." She didn't want to say anything after that so I didn't push her.

* * *

We drove in silence the rest of the way to our destination. When we arrived, we were seated at a booth and given time to look at a menu. We placed our orders and waited for our food to arrive.

"Is that chicken and dumpling soup you ordered good?"

"Yeah, I get it every time I'm here." Kate ordered a salad with her pasta and I ordered soup with mine. Along with breadsticks, those were our appetizers.

"So how are you finding our school so far?"

"Compared to what I'm used to, it's a major upgrade. I used to live in Sawtooth but due to all the crime that happens there, my dad wanted us to move. It's a nice change of pace to not have to watch your back every time you step out of your house."

"It's that bad in Sawtooth?" I nodded my head. "That's crazy." Our soup and salad arrived along with our breadsticks. I was about to dig in but I saw Kate eyeballing my soup.

"You want to have a taste?" Kate nodded her head vigorously. I scooped some of the soup onto my spoon and brought it over to her to taste. She sloshed the soup in her mouth for a second, making sure to savor all the flavor. Then she swallowed.

"Wow! That's delicious!" She said a bit loud, causing a few people to look our way.

"Glad you think so, I love coming here just for this."

"I can taste why. It's really good." We were too busy eating our food to talk much. I ate more than I usually did. DDR drained me more than I thought. Before we knew it our entrée's came and we dug into that as well. Kate finished rather quickly and I was still eating when she started to make conversation. "What do you do for fun. Besides what I already know." I finished the food in my mouth before I responded to her.

"Other than airsoft, bowling, and now DDR, I like to play video games I guess." I thought she was thinking that I was a typical guy that likes video games but what she said next threw that out the window.

"What genre do you play? I tend to stick with shooters but I play a few RPGs as well." I just stared at her, not believing what I was hearing. So I decided to test her.

"I tend to play the same thing you do. What's your main shooter?"

"Rainbow Six Siege and Battlefield. I dabbled in COD for a bit but they lost me with all the futuristic games they've released lately. Can't get enough of siege, though. I love the teamwork and cooperation required to win games and there are new strategies being learned every day." I couldn't' believe my ears. Not only did she know the names of certain shooters, she's played them and from what she was talking she took them rather seriously.

"No kidding? I play siege too. I even joined a competitive team."

"Console?"

"Same time?"

"On three. One, two, three! PS4."

"PS4." We both said at the same time which caused us to chuckle a bit.

"You should add me and see if I'm good enough to make the team. I usually solo queue because I don't have a lot of friends that can play the game very well."

"I'm not a recruiter and compared to them I'm nothing more than a rookie with potential. Not only that but they're pretty cool. Even some of our not so skilled guys are members of the team. They'll teach you everything they know."

"In that case, I'll be the best student they've ever had." I chuckled a bit.

"I'm surprised that you game. You definitely don't give off that vibe."

"Yeah, it's not something I make known to just anyone. Also with the sports I've picked up, I've had less time to game than I'd like."

"I get it, I had a similar issue with my last school and Baseball. Although everyone at that school knew I was a gamer. Any reason why you don't share that with others?" Kate took a sip of her drink and pondered her response.

"Cause, unfortunately, gamers aren't exactly looked at in a positive way. I don't want people to think of me that way."

"So you hide who you are to be accepted by others?" She cringed a bit when I say that. "What's the point of putting on a mask for other people? They'll like your mask but not you because they don't know you. The you that bowls, plays DDR, and games is the real you. The serious scholar and tough captain isn't."

"It's for my dad. He expects a lot from me. Getting me ahead in school and supporting me in the sports I want to do is what he's done for me and I love him for that. Lately, it's just gotten a bit much and I just wanted to take some time off for myself. You allowed me to do that. Thank you." I rubbed the back of my neck and felt the blood flow to my cheeks.

"No problem, sometimes you just need to be yourself, and hey, if you need something, to relax, reduce some stress, I'm here for you and I'll help" I haven't said that to anyone besides Shima, and even at that the way I said it made it sound like I had more passion behind it.

"I appreciate it, Humphrey." She looked into my eyes and I looked at hers. We started leaning in closer to each other and closing our eyes. We both knew how we felt and there was no fighting it. We almost made contact when…

"Here's your check, whenever you're ready." She snapped us out of our trance and we quickly backed away from each other. The waitress gave us a smile and walked off to assist other customers. I wasn't sure if she was dense or if she just wanted to get us out of here as quickly as possible. I put my debit card in the checkbook and set it on the edge of the table. Within a minute the waitress was back and took the check. She came back very quickly as well. "Thank you, have a good night." She was gone before either one of us could respond to her. Kate and I both looked at each other with a confused look and laughed a bit at what just transpired. Not wanting to take up any more of the staff's time, we headed out. As soon as I pulled out of the parking lot, Kate fell asleep. I smiled knowing that Kate had a good time.

* * *

I pulled up in front of Kate's house and shook her awake.

"Kate, you're home." She looked around to get her bearings and then stretched a bit.

"Thank you, Humphrey." She gave me a kiss on the cheek. My face heated up quickly when she did that. "Have a good night." She got out of the car and got inside of her home while I was fumbling my mind trying to think of an appropriate response. By the time I came up with one she was already inside. I drove home and walked into the house. Shima was in the living room watching TV.

"And where have you been?" This was going to be a long night.

 **Why was I late? My laptop refused to turn on and made too much progress on this chapter to just start a new one. IT took their time to fix it but it is fixed. The ending might seem a little rushed but I did want to get this out as quickly as possible. Thank you for your patience and until next time this is Ragmanthemadman, signing off.**


	5. Getting Comfortable

**I'm glad you guys are enjoying this story so far. Hope you guys enjoy this chapter.**

After our little date, Kate and I have hung out a lot more. Well, sort of. When we're at school we tend not show any affection towards each other just to try and avoid drama with other people. That wasn't a big deal to me, I could handle that. What I couldn't handle was Shima's constant questioning. Whenever I was out a little late or she noticed me and Kate hanging out by ourselves she would bombard me with questions about what we did and things like that. Anyway, it's been about a week since that happened and we were just finishing up our rhythm game session for the day when the owner of the place came up to us.

"Hey, you're Jerome's kid right?"

"Yeah, and you are?"

"The name's Bond, James Bond." He struck a pose straight out of 007 but then relaxed we both looked at him strangely. "Fine my last name isn't Bond but my first name is James. I'm the owner of the place." He stuck his hand out for me to shake.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Humphrey." I shook his hand and he took a look at the company behind me.

"I'm Kate."

"Lilly."

"I'm Shima, nice to meet ya."

"Likewise. I couldn't help but notice you guys playing on the rhythm games. You guys into it?" We all nodded our head pretty hard which got a little chuckle out of the guy. "Well, I'm holding a local arcade tournament here where people can compete to earn some cash, interested?"

"Yeah! When is it?" Kate responded

"Next weekend. First place gets $200 for each machine."

"How do you qualify?" I asked him.

"Everyone plays the same three songs on the difficulty of their choice, their EX score is used instead of the overall score. The top four players, or two if there aren't a lot of competitors, will compete using three different songs. Their EX scores will be tallied and the player that has the highest EX score wins the whole tournament." I had no clue what an EX score was but I had a feeling Kate and Lilly knew.

"We'll do it. Sounds like a lot of fun." Kate responded for us.

"Awesome, see you next weekend." We all gave Kate a look when she just shrugged her shoulders.

"What? It's free to enter, there's money up for grabs, we're all pretty good at our respective rhythm game, what's the worst that could happen?" The owner came back with a flier.

"Forgot to give you this. Take care." On the flier was the date and time of the competition as well as the three songs used for qualifying. Of course, Kate jumped at the opportunity to stay a little longer.

"Can we at least do a set with these three songs so we can prepare ourselves." She asked looking dead at me.

"I guess, not like we're in a rush to go anywhere." Kate yanked my arm towards the DDR machine and immediately got started.

"If you guys are going to do that, Shima and I will go and do the songs for Beatmania." I turned in time to see Lilly and Shima walking toward the Beatmania machine. Meanwhile, Kate practically force me to play outside of my comfort zone. The songs themselves weren't too bad, although one called Delta Max was really hard for me to do because of the increasing BPM. Thing is, Kate wanted me to try the songs at a level higher than I wanted to play them on. So for Delta Max I was going to play on basic but she forced me to try difficult which was a thirteen, the highest difficulty I've ever done. The beginning wasn't bad because it was slow, but when it sped up I had to go faster and faster to catch up and I ended up running out of stamina towards the end. Since she did this for all three songs I ended up failing all of them because my legs would give out on me halfway through the song.

"You can pass these songs you just get tired too easily. It'll get better with practice. We'll come here after school for an hour or two to try and improve your stamina." I just nodded as I was hunched over trying to catch my breath. My legs felt really tight after our session. Shima and Lilly came over to us when they were done with their session. Since all they need is their hands they weren't as tired or sweaty as Kate and I was.

"You good to drive home bro?" Shima asked with concern.

"Yeah… just… give me… a minute." Kate chuckled a bit.

"You guys still having that sleepover?" Kate said out of nowhere which caught me off guard.

"Woah, what sleepover?"

"I told you yesterday that Lilly was going to sleep over, and before you ask, yes I got the ok from dad." There went my argument. She did tell me on Friday on the way home from school too but I just forgot.

"Great now I got two people to try and bug me at home."

"Oh calm down, we'll keep to ourselves… mostly." She mumbled the last word but I could hear what she said.

"How about we play Siege tonight so it'll be like I'm there with you." Kate suggested.

"Yeah, I can get the guys online so you can try and join our team too."

"That was more of a joke Humphrey. You don't actually have to do it. They probably don't want to game with a girl anyway."

"As long as you play, they really don't care." I looked at the two young girls in front of me. "Just don't make too much noise tonight, ok?"

"No Promises." Shima smirked at me. I just rolled my eyes at her. Knowing her, she's going to make tonight troublesome for me.

* * *

I brought Shima and Lilly with me home so they could have their sleepover. Lilly already had a change of clothes in Kate's car and Kate brought Lilly bowling equipment home with her. The car ride home wasn't too bad, the girls sat in the back and had a conversation amongst themselves. They asked my opinion on some things they were talking about and I would give it but they didn't take it seriously, they would snicker to themselves saying that I'm 'such a guy'. I was just glad to get home so they could play amongst themselves. I quickly let the gaming crew know what was happening and I was able to get a recruiter along with a couple friends on to play with Kate and I. I made a party on PSN and invited everyone to it before starting Siege. I was just warming up in some terrorist hunt when the guys started to join.

"What up Humphrey."

"Hey Humphrey."

"Hey Josh, Alex." Josh and Alex were both recruiters for the team I'm on.

"Who's the guy you want to try out?" Josh asked.

"Well, she's been playing siege for a while…"

"Whoa, a she? What I miss Humphrey?"

"Nothing Alex. She told me she plays Siege and that she wanted to try her hand at joining a team. Let's be real, the tournament qualifier is starting soon and us three and Erebus (We don't know his real name yet) are the only really good ones on the team. The others have potential but they won't make it past qualifying and if they do they're going in as a low seed."

"Then we'll warm up in a casual match and see how she does in ranked. You invite Erebus?"

"Yes Josh I invited Erebus. You know how slow he is." Kate joined the party after I finished that sentence. KutieKatie was her name.

"Hey guys."

"Hey Kate."

"Sup Kate. Name's Josh."

"And you can call me Alex."

"Nice to meet you guys." It was quiet for a bit before she spoke up. "So, how does this work?"

"We're just going to hop into ranked and see how you play." Josh responded. As soon as Erebus got on we hopped right into ranked, we didn't bother warming up with a casual because we didn't really care about our ranks. Erebus asked why Kate was a gold (two ranks bellow diamond which is the highest rank in the game and also where the four of us are). She explained that because she solo queues (plays by herself) finding good teammates is often hit or miss. There's only so much she can do by herself. First match loads up and it's on Bank, a map we're pretty strong at. The four of us already know what to do but Kate was a little lost so I gave her a quick rundown.

"Reinforce the wall in the vault area. The three of them are getting the hatches and I'm playing in garage." As soon as I told her that she went to work immediately. Her game knowledge was remarkable, higher than some other guys on our team. She ended up showing off her skills in some clutch moments and actually ended up topping the leaderboard. We played a little slow on purpose just to see how she takes initiative and because of that we did worse than we normally do. I think all of us were in agreement thought that Kate was really good.

"Yeah Kate you did really well. I'd say you more than earned your spot on the team. Just fill your information out on our website and make a Line account so Humphrey can invite you to the chat."

"Thanks for giving me the opportunity guys."

"Not a problem. We're getting off for the night, going to go to an event near us."

"Have a good one guys." One by one they left the party leaving Kate and I alone. I walked her through our website and making a Line account over the party chat. After she was done with that I invited her to the Line chat and we'll make sure to tweet about our newest member first thing in the morning. For now, however, we just talked.

"You sure I'm ready for this?"

"Of course you are, you improved greatly in just a week. Most people who don't use bar usually don't go above 13 but you passed a 14, a hard 14 at that." She's referring to Paranoia Revolution, a DDR song. I passed Basic with ease and for giggles I wanted to try Difficult. I passed, but barely.

"You already have a leg up on most people who will be there. Me on the other hand, might have some competition. Guy that uses the machines at Round 1 holds some of the high scores for level 18 songs. He might give me some trouble."

"I just think it's crazy that people hold competitions for arcade games."

"Why not? It's similar to video games but it requires some physical skill other than using a controller or keyboard well. A lot of people find a DDR competition more interesting than a CS:GO competition."

"I'll look up a video later. You mind explaining what EX score is though?"

"Oh yeah, EX score is a different score system than the normal score you see during regular play. Instead of one million points divided equally among the steps, each step has a set value. The more steps in a chart, the more potential EX score you can get. The points go by timing, Marvelous is three points, Perfect is two points, Great is one point, Good and Miss are zero points. Freeze arrows give you three points no matter what timing you got when you hit it. This is also why the qualifier allows you to play the songs in whatever difficulty you want, because EX score scales with the difficulty."

"Oh I get it. Timing is a necessity for this score system. Getting a full combo isn't what I should strive for, it's hitting the most steps I can with Marvelous timing."

"Yeah! You got it. It's ok to miss a step if you know it'll mess up your timing, just string as many perfects combos as you can."

"I'll see if I can go sometime after school this week. I gotta improve on those songs too. Maybe I can bring Shima t…" My door opened slightly and Shima popped her head in.

"Hey bro, we need your opinion." When she said this I thought it was going to be another question like the ones they asked on the car ride home. Boy was I wrong.

"What is it?" She motions to Lilly who was behind her and they both walked in… topless. Bare chest exposed.

"Who's is bigger?" I averted my eyes when I noticed they were topless so I didn't get a good look at them and I was adamant not to give them one.

"Did she just ask what I think she asked?" Kate said. I thought the headphones I had was good at canceling background noise. Nope.

"Yup but I'm not giving them an answer."

"Why not? They all said at pretty much the same time."

"Because I'd have to look at them and I'm not doing that."

"So innocent. It's ok, we're letting you look."

"Kate help me out here." With Kate and I being together I thought she would help me get out of this situation.

"Oh, c'mon just look and see who's is bigger. It's not like they're asking who gives a better blowjob or something like that." Nope, no help there either. I just give in and take a look. Both of them are starting to develop their breasts but they look roughly the same size. Both had around a B cup if memory serves me right on what sizes are. Shima's breasts were more round and her nipples didn't protrude out much. Lilly on the other hand while she had a similar shape looked slightly smaller, but her nipples stuck out like a cherry on top of a cupcake.

"I think you both are the same size."

"Oh no, you're not getting out that easily." Even though what I said was the truth. I figured I might as well take the safe bet.

"Shima's is bigger."

"Ha! Told ya."

"It's cause you're his sister."

"Thanks Humphrey." Shima gave me a hug which I was way too scared to return cause her upper body was completely exposed. She grabbed my arm and forced it around her, my hand on her back. Her skin was soft and I could feel her breasts threw my shirt. She broke the hug and left my room with Lilly in tow.

"Put a shirt on before dad gets home."

"No promises." I just shook my head. Kate was giggling.

"C'mon don't laugh. That was a stressful situation. I'm surprised you're not angry at me, or them for this."

"Cause, it's your sister and my sister, also what I said before still applies. It was just harmless size comparison."

"Of course, none of them compare to you." There was a pause and I was worried I said something wrong but she responded.

"Well of course, but that's an unfair comparison cause I'm older than the two of them."

"True, but yours are still very impressive." I couldn't control what I said at this point. Not sure what was coming over me.

"Maybe you can see them soon." She said really seductively. I couldn't help but sweat a little at that. Kate noticed I didn't respond and she giggled. "I have to admit, your fun to tease."

"Yeah, yeah." I heard some voice in the background but I couldn't discern what they were saying."

"Be right there! I have to get off, but maybe we can play tomorrow?"

"I thought Lilly and Shima wanted us to head to the amusement park with them tomorrow."

"Oh, yeah that's right, well I'll see you tomorrow then."

"Yeah, have a good night. Love you."

"Love you too Hummy." It was a few seconds before I was notified that she left the party. I didn't feel like playing anything myself so I turned my PlayStation off and hopped into bed. Part of me was reflecting on my relationship with Kate and how fast it progressed. I never thought I could get a girl at all let alone one like her. It's like a dream come true. It didn't take long for me to succumb to sleep for the night. Happy at my current life.

 **I'm sorry for being so late for this. TLDR, college is a bitch. Workload this semester is way more than it was last semester. The time I have to myself to write has reduced a lot. I'm trying but please be patient. Until next time this is ragmanthemadman, signing off.**


	6. Maybe too comfortable?

**I apologize for taking so long. For those of you that follow my other story, Family Survives, you'd know why I'm taking so long. Long story short, a bunch of things came up one after another that I had to give my attention to. To add to that, finals took a lot of my time away from a lot of things, writing included. But, I've kept you waiting long enough. Here's another chapter.**

 **Sorry if there's typos, I didn't edit.**

For the next week, Kate and I went to round one to practice DDR. Lilly and Shima went too so they could practice Beatmania. With each day, my stamina improved, allowing me to go longer without getting tired. It even allowed me to clear the Max 300 stamina wall. An accomplishment for me and Kate shared her enthusiasm. I still had some training to do though.

"It's great that you cleared Max 300. It's a stamina wall that you have to get over in order to pass harder songs. The only problem with Max 300 is that its steps flow. There's no crossovers or spins that you have to do."

"I'm not really familiar as to what crossovers are."

"It's when you bring your starting foot across the pad to hit the other side. For example, left, down, right is a crossover because if your alternating your feet, like you should, your left foot would end up on the other side of the pad."

"Oh, I get it, and spins?"

"They start like crossovers but if you don't double step you'll end up facing away from the screen. left, up, right, down is a spin." I thought about it for a second and tried it alternating my feet. I ended up with my back to the screen and having to turn my head to look over my shoulder to see the screen. "Normally they're double stepped so you don't have to contort your body like that, but if you want to show off a bit they're fun and easy to do if you practice it."

"I'll keep that in mind. You think we can take a break? I don't want to tire myself out too much. We only have two days until the competition."

"Yeah, that's fair, what do you want to do?"

"Let's try some of the other rhythm games, I haven't given them a shot yet." We walked around the area a bit and tried some other rhythm games, thankfully most of them were in one spot. Kate and I went head to head in all of the games we tried. DDR was in English so it was easy to understand, but the other rhythm games weren't in English, instead they were in Japanese. The tutorials were a pain to understand, and Kate couldn't help because she hasn't played any of the other games besides Beatmania and DDR. Thankfully, most of them were pretty self-explanatory. Kate and I went head to head on the games and it was a pretty even split on who won. When we finished with our little break we went back to playing DDR, Kate immediately got to work on my technique.

"Ok, there are several songs that should help your technique. I'm going to let you do this solo so I can see what you're doing. If you double step any of the crossovers, I'll know. Only double step the spins." I nodded my head and she picked the first song for me to do which was in Japanese but she told me it translated to 'love is a space war'. The song started immediately and it didn't seem too bad at the start but I was immediately eating my words when the song threw me plenty of crossovers. I didn't double step like Kate wanted me to do but I couldn't keep up with the stream. I ended up failing somewhere in the middle.

"I… tried…" I said out of breath.

"Yeah, it's harder to keep your footspeed up when you're crossing the pad constantly. It was a good try and it is a pretty tiring song. I'll go a little slower." She chose another Japanese song but this time she didn't know what it translated to. There weren't any crossovers until the end and it still was hard to keep up. My technique felt like it was improving though. "There you go, you're getting better already."

"Thanks, but I don't think I'm going to get very far in the tournament this tomorrow."

"Even if you don't get very far you should still give it a shot. You're better than a lot of players trust me. You might not be able to full combo songs yet, but you're perfect and marvelous timing is _very_ good." She stressed the word very.

"Thanks, but even if I made it past qualifying I would have to face you and that wouldn't end well for me." Kate chuckled.

"Well I can't lose to my trainee, now can I?"

"One of these days I'll surpass you master." Kate and I laughed at our little back and forth conversation.

"What are you two laughing about?" Lilly asked.

"Oh, just making fun of each other a bit. How's your training going?" I asked her.

"Shima has picked up the game very fast, I'm jealous that she took three weeks to pass songs that took me months."

"In my defense, I had a great teacher. Are we still hanging out this weekend?"

"Yup. My parents are on a trip so Lilly and I have the house to ourselves."

"Cool, we already have our stuff in the car so we can follow you home."

"Sounds like a plan. You guys want to go now or do you want to stay a little longer?" Kate asked us.

"Let's go now. I want to see the inside of your house." Shima was practically bouncing up and down when she said this.

"Ok, let's get going then." We all left Round One and went to our respective cars. Kate and Lilly got in her car and Shima got in mine. I let her lead the way to her house and I just followed. Shima used her phone to listen to some songs from Beatmania. She says it's helpful to get the sounds of the song as that's what most of the notes on Beatmania are synced with. Some songs she played were also in DDR. One particular song caught my attention, but when I looked to catch the name it was in Japanese.

"Hey Shima, do you know what this song is called?"

"It's called Mei. You like it?"

"Yeah, it sounds great. The piano really makes the song stand out."

"That's what I said when I first played it. I'm thinking of using it as my song choice."

"Good choice, hope you know that means you have to be better than everyone else at it."

"I think I am. What about you? Do you know what you'll pick?"

"I doubt I'm even making it to the final round, but if I had to choose I'd say Dead End."

"Isn't that a 12? Selling yourself a little short, are you?"

"I've already gotten a PFC on it twice, I even beat Kate. A few more marvelous' and I'll have the area record."

"PFC?"

"Perfect Full Combo."

"Oh, ok. Hey if it works for you, don't listen to me. I'm playing a completely different game."

"I don't know how you do it. The notes are too hard to read for me. Outside of the turntable, the other buttons are packed close together and reading them is very hard."

"Not for me, it's like typing on a keyboard. Set up your fingers on certain buttons and move to hit others on an as need basis."

"Wow you really have this down to a science, don't you?"

"And you don't with DDR?"

"touché" We continued to follow Kate while listening to some Beatmania songs. When we arrived at Kate's house she pulled up in her driveway and I parked on the sidewalk. I was about to shut off the car when Kate knocked on my window. I rolled it down. (When I say roll I mean it. My car doesn't have powered windows.

"You can pull into the driveway Humphrey. No one is coming home until next week." I nodded and pulled into her driveway, turned the car off and rolled up the window before stepping out the car. I opened the trunk to get my bag and Shima's. I carried both inside the house. Walking through the front door I am welcomed to the sight of elegant furniture and china. Their living room had a black leather couch, a coffee table that compliments the couch, and a huge TV. At least 60 inches. Shima and I were just looking around just taking it all in. We had money, but we never used it to get things like this.

"Hellllllooooo?" Lilly said waiving her arms in front of us.

"Huh?"

"You guys ok? You're staring into space."

"Yeah, just didn't expect such an expensive looking interior." I responded.

"Yeah, our parents spoil us a lot." Kate said chuckling to herself.

"Only cause we get good grades."

"And this is just the living room." Kate leads us upstairs to Lilly's room. Lilly had pink theme to it. Pink bedding, pink decorations, pink… Beatmania controllers?

"Woah!? You have your own Beatmania controllers?" Shima said with surprise.

"Yup. It gets expensive to go to the arcade to practice y'know."

"Ready to see my room?" I nodded enthusiastically which got a chuckle out of everyone but left me to feel a bit embarrassed. Kate brought us to her room and the inside of it was a little more neutral. There was books for school in one area but in another there's some of her sports gear. She also has some of her dresses on display in her closet.

"Little surprised to not see anything DDR related." I told her.

"Oh, that's not in my room."

"Wait, you have DDR stuff!?"

"Of course we do." Kate lead us downstairs to the basement and what I saw made my jaw drop. She had not one, not two, but three dance machines. Two DDR machines and a Pump It Up machine, a dance game that has five panels instead of four like DDR. "One machine, while it looks like DDR, is actually loaded with In the Groove."

"ITG? I thought those were extinct."

"You don't see a lot of them in public arcades anymore, but they still exist."

"That explains how you're so good at DDR. Compared to ITG, DDR seems like a game for kids."

"We're not dance game players, so mind explaining a bit bro?"

"ITG is a game that has a lot of songs that can be custom loaded into the game. Most times the songs can last for several minutes go really fast."

"Because of that, technique and efficiency is very important."

"So what's that?" Shima pointed at the Pump It Up machine.

"That's Pump It Up. Songs tend to be difficult only because of the gimmicks and the speed. The timing window is very wide though."

"So it balances out a bit. I think I get it now."

"Wanna give it a try?"

"Maybe after the tournament. I want to sink as much time as I can into practicing Beatmania."

"Where are we staying."

"We actually don't have guest rooms. We just figured you wouldn't mind sleeping with us." Kate said.

"That's fine by me!" Shima said with enthusiasm. Meanwhile I'm getting a little hot under the collar.

"Wait, so Shima is bunking with Lilly, and I'm with you?" Kate nodded.

"What? You don't want to?" That's a hard question to answer.

"I don't mind it, do you?"

"Not at all, I'm the one who recommended it." She could tell I was nervous about it. "We can talk about it later. For now you can leave your stuff in our rooms." I did what she said and brought our stuff up to their rooms. Shima came with.

"What's wrong dude?"

"Nothing, what makes you think somethings wrong?" We start heading up the stairs. To their rooms.

"You're sweating, blushing, and a little weak kneed. You're nervous about sleeping with Kate aren't you?'

"Jeez, is it that obvious?" I said rather sarcastically.

"Why though?"

"We just got together last week, and now we're about to sleep together? A bit fast don't you think?"

"No one said you were going to do anything naughty."

"Says the girl who brought her best friend into my room, topless, and asked whose breasts were bigger."

"That was different, we were asking for your opinion based on sight. It's not like we asked you to grope them and see whose feels bigger."

"Still…" I put Shima's bag in Lilly's room and mine in Kate's. "It's something that I have to get used to."

"C'mon. We nap together all the time the only difference is that Kate is the one napping with you."

"I don't think you get that the fact that it IS Kate is the reason why I'm nervous."

"You'll be fine. Watch, after your little session, you'll probably be too tired to care."

"Session?"

"I meant your DDR training, get your mind out of the gutter." She poked my forehead. We went back downstairs to see Kate and Lilly playing Pump it up together. And when I say together, I mean they're sharing the pads. "What the heck are they doing?"

"It's called a routine. They share the pads and work together to pass a song. It's pretty tricky if you're not in sync with your partner." Kate and Lilly were pretty good though. They hit the patterns with good accuracy and when they had to cross each other to get to the other side of the pad they did it seamlessly and didn't bump into each other. They ended up passing with an A. Not a full combo but they were really good.

"You guys practice that, don't you?"

"We did this all the time. It's how we've bonded. I remember showing off at a convention one time." Kate said.

"Oh yeah, maybe we should give it a shot."

"Like I said I'm putting as much time as I can into Beatmania. This'll have to wait."

"Why are you taking this so seriously? I know it's not because of the money."

"Because, I want to be able to say that I'm good at something. Even if it's a game." I immediately felt bad for asking that. Shima wasn't the best when it came to the activities they had at the orphanage, and when she hung out with us, she wasn't as good as I was when it came to certain things because she couldn't be gone from the orphanage for too long to practice.

"Then let's go, we still have a few hours before it gets too late." Lilly took Shima's hand and ran upstairs. "You know where to find us!" She closed the door to the basement behind her leaving me and Kate alone.

"Ready to go?"

"Yeah, but why did you do all of this instead of just getting a pad and stepmania."

"Because stepmania doesn't offer the arcade experience. Don't worry, I got all the DDR songs on the ITG machine. The timing window is a little different but the steps are the same."

"What mix is the DDR you have?"

"X3 Vs 2nd mix."

"Nice."

"We're not here to practice the songs directly, we're trying to improve your technique. Fortunately I know some that can help you out." She has a list of songs in her pocket that she pulls out and selects for me to play. She still watched ot make sure that I was performing the crossovers and not double stepping them. There was one song, though, that had a very weird pattern.

"What the heck is this?"

"That's called an Afronova walk." She got on the player two pad. "It's basically doing candles sideways." She demonstrated the pattern. "It looks very weird but it's essential to learn because high level songs use this as a pattern. It's not always by itself either."

"That's cool. What happened to when the hardest part of this game was keeping up with 200 BPM eighth note streams?" Kate chuckled a bit.

"Konami thought that was too easy and decided to make things harder. Trust me when I say that there are songs that go faster than that."

"I know, the Max series of songs."

"Even faster than those."

"What!?"

"I'll show you the next time I get a chance, but for now try the walk again." It took a couple of playthroughs but I was able to get the hang of the walk.

* * *

After a few hours of practice we decided to call it a night.

"You're doing great."

"Yeah, but I'm still not on your level. Maybe I should start using the bar like you do." Kate thought about it for a second.

"Let's hold off on doing that for now. I want to see how far you can go without it." She smiled when she said that. "You're passing songs with no bar that some people can't pass using it." I felt accomplished when she said that. "C'mon let's head upstairs." I followed her upstairs and into her room. Lilly's room was eerily quiet when we walked passed, figured they were asleep already.

"Mind if I took a quick shower? Playing DDR does make you sweaty."

"Yeah go ahead. Bathroom's across the hall."

"Thanks." I took my pajamas and toiletries with me to the bathroom and proceeded to shower. As I was taking one my mind started to wander. Sleeping with Kate. For most guys, it's a dream come true, including me, but it's a big step. I already broke the rule of not letting others close to me, but this is even closer than I thought I would ever get with a girl. And if word got out, oh man would that cause more trouble than I'm willing to deal with. I shake off the thoughts and get out of the shower. When I get back into Kate's room she's already in her 'pajamas' and by pajamas, I mean a t-shirt and panties. Instinctively, I avert my eyes. "Sorry, I didn't know you were still changing."

"No I'm done changing, this is what I wear when I sleep."

"Come again?" Kate chuckles even more.

"Are you blushing?" I couldn't deny the heat in my cheeks so I just let out a little grunt. "That's so cute. You don't have to look away. We're dating, I don't mind if you see me like this." I slowly turn my head to look at her and take in what I see. Her panties really brought out the curvature in her hips and… behind. Her t-shirt was fairly tight and didn't even come done to her hips, stopping just below her naval. Did I mention she was braless?

"Is that comfortable?"

"Yup, even though it's September, it's still hot."

"Agreed." I still wear shorts and a t-shirt for bed. "So where am I sleeping."

"In the bed with me."

"Right, just double checking." I wasn't sure what answer I was hoping for when I asked that.

"Is that a problem?"

"Well…"

"You'll be fine."

"I know, but isn't this a bit fast for you?" She put on a serious face for a second.

"I believe that a good relationship has a good amount of physical emotion in it." I understood what she was getting at.

"Isn't this a bit fast though?"

"We're not going all the way. And if it makes you feel any better, I'm just as nervous about this as you are." She did a much better job of hiding it than me. She laid in her king-sized bed on one side and left the other open for me. I slid under the covers and got in the space next to her.

"Good night Humphrey." I gave her a peck on the cheek which granted me a smile.

"Night Kate." With that we fell asleep. In the same bed, but not touching eachother… yet.

 **I'M SORRY!**

 **I know I'm late but school was a major pain in the ass and I didn't want to do anything for at least a week since I got home. But I'm back on the grind now. You'll be seeing more from me in the near future. Until next time, this is ragmanthemadman signing off.**

 **Oh, Happy Mother's Day!**


	7. Tournament time!

**Hey guys, I know it's been a while but my job really picks up in the summer. Don't worry I'm still gonna update you just gotta be patient with me because I do still have other responsibilities.**

Now I have never really gotten into girls before all this happened. It wasn't that I wasn't into them it was just that it seemed like a lot of work. Especially the environment I was around, relationships were never to be taken at face value. It seemed like someone was always cheating or there seemed to be someone being taken advantage of. I just didn't feel like dealing with all of that. Fast forward to now and not only did I get a girlfriend within the first week of coming to Jasper, but she's also gorgeous, and is very popular amongst others. So much so that I was warned not to make it public because it would cause unnecessary problems with other students. Yeah it's hard, but it's worth it. Speaking of hard, sleeping was very hard to do. Yes, we did start off sleeping without touching eachother, but we toss and turn, and for some reason around 3 in the morning, Kate held onto me like I was a teddy bear, pushing her soft breasts onto me. It was very hard to get sleep after that, but that wasn't the end of it.

Around an hour later she shifted again, moving her entire body on top of mine. Both of our chests were touching, and her．．．pelvic region and mine were right on top of one another. It took all of my willpower to not get hard at that. We were like that for the rest of the night, until her alarm woke her up. Her face was under my chin so when she woke up her head started to rise up to look at me. It took her a few seconds before she realized our position and moved off of me in a panic.

"Sorry! I knew I tossed and turned at night but I didn't think I'd do that." She turned her alarm off after she finished.

"Don't worry about it."

"I didn't make it too uncomfortable for you to sleep did I?"

"No, I thought it was nice." Although I didn't really sleep but she doesn't need to know that.

"Anyway, let's get ready for today. Go wake up Lilly and Shima while I get ready."

"Ok, I'll that." I left Kate's room and went to Lilly's. The door was closed so I knocked. "Wake up guys we gotta get ready." I waited to hear a response but got none. I knocked again. "Guys, you gotta get up!" Still no response. I opened the door to see what was up and I ended up averting my eyes immediately. Both of them slept, in the same bed, covers off, only in panties. I made enough noise to wake up Lilly (even though yelling at her to wake up and knocking wasn't enough to wake her somehow).

"Humphrey? What's up?"

"Kate told me to wake you guys." She looked at her clock which read 8:00.

"Thanks, we'll get up."

"Question, why get up this early if the tournament isn't till noon?"

"Kate wants to get a warmup before going in and same with me. You should join her."

"She would have probably forced me anyway."

"You're probably right." It just registered to her that I was looking away the whole time. "You know we don't mind right?"

"Huh? Don't mind what?"

"If you look at us nude. We showed you our tits for Christ sake. We trust you." I don't know why, but when she said that, all the bad things I did in the past flooded to the front of my mind. Stuff I've kept secret from them. I tell myself it's to protect them, but it still nags me that they only know a small part of me. Not even Shima knows everything I've done, pretty sure Officer Betsey doesn't either.

"How, you guys just met me?"

"We can tell. Trust me, if Kate takes a liking to you, then you're a good person. She's good at reading people like that. And you're her boyfriend so she must see something great in you. Something that no other guy she's come across has." That brought a big grin to my face and I even faced her eyes open.

"Thanks Lilly. That was needed."

"Anytime Humphrey. Now get out, we gotta change." Not wanting to overstay my welcome, I left Lilly's room and went back to Kate's she was in the shower across from her room so I took the opportunity to change. Athletic shorts and a t-shirt was all I needed. I was told to keep it light anyway. Still heard shower water running so I thought I would beat Kate to the punch and try to play a game of DDR. Kate showed me how to turn the machine on so I was able to turn it on easily. The sound of the machine would definitely draw them here. So, I pick a hard song to try and impress them. Max 300, expert. My goal was a full combo. The song starts with its intense drumming. The chart then begins with it's gallops at the start. Then it kicks it up with drills and candles (streams that you either have to hit the same two arrows in quick succession, or where your foot has to cross the center of the pad). At first it wasn't bad, then my legs started to burn, more than usual. I felt my muscles getting tight, and my vision was blurry at the song's stop. I took the little time I had to catch my breath and prepare for the finale. I was able to pass, but pretty much collapsed right after. Kate was already downstairs and got to my side pretty quickly.

"Are you crazy!? You shouldn't have done that for your first song."

" I wanted to show you that I improved, I thought you'd be proud."

"I am, but that was really stupid of you. You didn't warm up like you should've. And on the day of the tournament too? You could've hurt yourself and have been unable to participate."

"I didn't mean to make you worry."

"I know. Just cool off for a bit and when you're ready, do a proper warm up."

"Yes ma'am." That got a little chuckle out of her.

"You're too cute." She gave me a peck on the lips.

"Oh yeah? How?"

"You say you've never been in a relationship, and it's clear you haven't, but even though you may not know what to do or say but you try your best. You fumble around a lot too and I think it's cute."

"Well, I think you're adorable." She chuckled .

"Case in point."

"Hey!"

"Just relax, watch me play a couple songs then you can play." Kate plays a couple songs but they were 12's. Not very difficult but difficult enough to get the hang of things. "Now that's a warmup. Even someone of my skill has to get loose before playing."

"I understand. I won't do it again."

"Good, now c'mon and warm up a little." Taking her advice, I did a proper warmup. During our warmup, Lilly and Shima came down to watch. Both of us were able to pass a 14 which impressed both of them.

"I don't understand how you guys are able to read notes that fast." Shima told us.

"We could say the same to you guys."

"True."

"Alright guys, we've trained hard, so let's show the others how to play games the right way."

"Yeah!" We all said together.

* * *

We all drove there in Kate's car. I offered to drive but Kate didn't think her parents would approve of someone else driving her car. The car ride was very quiet because everyone was trying to focus. When we arrived, there were several people, many I've never seen before, getting ready to play. The machines were off limits to others, and some organizers were getting people's names and the game they're here to participate in. After checking in, the organizer got the rest of the people who were waiting to check in and then made an announcement over the PA system.

"Can I have everyone's attention please! Welcome to the first rhythm game tournament for R1. Glad to see such a big turnout. Alright, first thing's first, we're going to hold a qualifier for every game, with the top 4 from each game going to the finals. Everyone head to your rhythm game and a tournament organizer will be there to gove further instructions."

"I guess this is where we split up."

"Looks like it bro. You'll watch right?"

"Of course! I wouldn't miss my little sister's skills."

"hehe good luck bro, you too Kate."

"Thanks, good luck sis."

"Thank you. Good luck everyone." Kate and I headed to DDR while Shima and Lilly went to Beatmania. Kate and I were waiting for a tournament director to show up someone approached Kate.

"Kate? That you?" An alpha male with jet black fur approached her.

"Loc? I'm surprised you came out of hiding."

"Well I don't know if you knew but I was away for a while. Of course a tournament happens when I get back and I can't stay away." He looked at me. "Who's this?"

"Oh, Loc this is Humphrey. I've been showing him the ropes. Humphrey, this is Loc, an expert DDR player and rival of mine."

"Nice to meet you." I stuck my hand out for him to shake and he took it.

"Likewise. Kate is an awesome player. To get trained by her is something most players dream of happening. Don't waste it."

"Don't worry, I won't." Someone clapped their hands to get our attention.

"Alright guys, thanks for coming to the first rhythm game tournament at this Round 1 location. First thing's first everyone gets one warm up song." He flashed his index finger to emphasize. "Your partner for warmups will be your partner for the qualifying song. Good luck!" Kate was quick to grab my shoulder and line up behind others at the machine. While waiting for our turn we went over certain patterns as well as stops and slowdowns in certain songs. Our warmup song was After School Stride. A 14 with a lot of crossovers. A good warmup for technique and stamina. We also caught Loc who warmed up with Elemental Creation Difficult. A fast 14 with steps that flow but forces you to use up a lot of stamina.

"Still playing the fast stuff I see."

"Yup, and you still love crossovers."

"Absolutely, my favorite pattern."

"Alright! Now we're doing the qualifying song. Because of the gimmicks, everyone will be put in a separate room and called out individually. First group is Dwane and John. Everyone else go to Karaoke room two." The other 10 people, including us, went to the karaoke room and waited for instructions. Some people put headphones in and others chatted a bit.

"What do you think the song is?"

"Beats me Humphrey. He said there was gimmicks so it's not something you can sightread but it has to be easy enough that anyone can do it. My guess is Mei Difficult."

"I think it'll be Pluto expert. It's not the hardest 14 but it's impossible to sight-read." The debate went on for about 20 minutes before we were called up.

"Alright Kate, Humphrey you're going to log in and pick Over The Period Basic. You can use any option you'd like." After logging in we selected the song and waited for the go ahead. Over the Period is a 12 on Basic but it's very hard. Not a lot of people can pass it. Sight-reading this is even more impossible than Pluto. The BPM range is ridiculous and the gimmicks are very plentiful. Luckily, Kate and I play this all the time because we both love the song (It's a real song and I encourage you to check it out). "Whenever you're ready you can start." We both locked in our difficulty and the song began. It starts with a slow organ like sound that has to be stepped to. Because it's so slow it's hard to time but Kate and I both had perfect combos when the section ended. The song then stops for a couple seconds before speeding up. I got a great here but Kate didn't. the song continues like any other song would until the ending when it jumps to two times the BPM. Both of us kept up with ease and when we finished I had a full combo with 1 great and Kate had a perfect full combo.

"Nice one."

"Thanks you didn't do bad yourself."

"Good job guys. You can hang out here while the results get posted. The coordinator went to a back room for employees so Kate and I took the opportunity to watch the other rhythm games play. Sound Voltex was going strong, Museca was already finished. Then Beatmania caught my eye and I saw Lilly and Shima going at it. Both were doing really well and had the attention of several people. Both finished with a full combo and everyone who was watching gave a round of applause. The coordinator for Beatmania congratulated then and then went to the employee only area. Shima spotted us and went over to where we were.

"If you don't make the finals then this is rigged."

"Appreciate the help but I'm sure we're fine. Lilly and I were killing it."

"Yeah we were." They gave eachother a high five.

"I'm sure we got this as well. Kate PFC'd the song for goodness sake."

"Only cause you had to in order to pass when it first came out."

"What song sis?"

"OTP."

"Oh yeah, she's obsessed with that song. She hums it in her sleep."

"No I don't." I chuckled a bit.

"When are we getting the results?" Immediately after I said that the coordinators came out.

"Now I guess." The manager of the place spoke up.

"Alright, first off thank you to everyone who participated. There was a pretty good turnout. Everyone did well but unfortunately some did better than others. We're posting the results at the respective games. There's a line splitting the names of people who played, that's the cutoff. If you're below it you did not qualify. Museca players the qualifying was brought down from four to two because of the low turnout. If you didn't qualify you're welcome to stay and watch or go home. Museca will be the first finals with others to follow after." The coordinators for each rhythm game attached the results to the games that were played. The list for DDR had our names on the left and our EX scores on the right. It went Kate, Loc, David...

And lastly me.

"I made it!?"

"Yup! Congratulations! Told you that you can do it." Lilly and Shima came up to us.

"We were the best two players for Beatmania. The third best player has a good 50 points less than two of us. Shima and I actually tied."

"I had the lead but the slowdown cost me a few points. I wasn't ready for it."

"Nice guys. I scrapped into the finals and Kate had the best score out of everyone."

"Don't be modest Humphrey. Look, David only beat you by 5."

"Only cause I hate OTP" A man I assumed was David stepped up to us. "Still, you did really good."

"Thank you."

Humphrey this is David. David, Humphrey. David's another rival of mine."

"But I went off the grid and played Pumo it up for a while. Speaking of, sad it didn't have a tourney."

"Probably cause the card reader doesn't work yet."

"True. Anyways, what song are you gonna pick Kate."

"Ah, ah, ah, no spoilers." She wagged her finger as she said that.

"Worth a shot. Anyways, let's check out Museca's competition."

Museca's gameplay boils down to this. Five disc shaped buttons that can be spun and a floor button for your foot. The players playing the games were regulars who clearly devoted a lot of time into the game. They were killing it. The two who missed qualifying just stared in aw, noticing the clear gap in skill between them. In the end some guy named Keith won it. He resieved a trophy along with his cash prize. Unfortunately, the guy who came in second only got some points on his card.

Next was Sound Voltex (or SDVX), everyone there was pretty evenly matched. There's six buttons, two rectangle ones below four square ones and two knobs that can be turned side to side. It came down to the last song and the winner, Sam, barely edged out everyone else. Sam and the person in second got a trophy and cash compensation, the others got points on their cards.

Next was Beatmania, where Lilly and Shima were going to play. Because it's easy to interfere with others in this game only one person at a time can go. When it came time for song picks Shima chose Smooooooooooooch by Kors K and Lilly chose Mei by Amuro vs Killer. The last guy chose a Japanese song that I didn't quite get.

"Good luck to everyone." The first guy did fairly well, getting multiple triple digit combo's, but his timing wasn't that great and he only got an A.

The second guy didn't have that high of a combo and was only able to get a AA.

When it came to Lilly and Shima, they dominated. Both got a AAA full combo on the song. The two guys were clearly impressed and a little intimidated. It wasn't even a contest anymore, it was just Lilly and Shima competing for first. It came down to the last song where Shima was ahead by 10. The final song had a very difficult ending that Shima couldn't quute figure out and ended up losing her combo. Lilly, however, didn't mess up the ending and was able to full combo the song. The only question was whether or not her timing was good enough. The wait was long, Shima and Lilly were getting restless along with some of the crowd. It was then announced that Lilly just edged out Shima by 3 points. Lilly jumped up and down, excited at her victory. The two guys congratulated her and Shima gave her a hug. But it wasn't a friendly one, it was more like a "I admit defeat for now but I'll beat you eventually" hug.

Lilly got the $200 cash prize and Shima got a respectable $50. The other two guys got points on their card.

While other rhythm games were going on, we all went to another area to chat.

"That was amazing. It was such a close game."

"Of course it was, it was a classic master vs student.

"And the master came out on top"

"THIS time, you're on top. It'll be me next time."

We kept talking about the matches for a minute until the DDR match was about to start.

"Good luck guys."

"Go get 'em bro."

The stage was set. Kate, Loc, David and I lined up. When it came to song selection it was a pretty challenging set. David picked Aether Expert (17), Loc picked Pluto Relinquish Expert (17), and Kate picked Illegal Function Call Expert(16). I unfortunately didn't get a song pick. Oh yeah, did I mention that I am playing with no bar while the others are. I was at a huge disadvantage. What didn't help was that we started right away. I played all the songs before which was a relief, but I was by no means an expert at them. I was good at 12's, but 16's or higher were passable but not with a good score.

First up was Aether. The chart itself was straightforward, it was just fast. There's also a slowdown in the middle that's pretty difficult to time. I was fine, up until the ending, a burst of drills and streams that I was barely able to finish out. At the end of it I only got an A, while the others had AA's. Needless to say, I felt dejected.

I pretty much lagged behind the whole time. Kate ended up winning by 100 points, pretty crazy. At the end of it I was actually pretty happy. I held my own playing no bar. Some who didn't qualify using it gave me a lot of props for doing so well. The manager, James, gave us a closing speech that came with the announcement of using some videos and pictures for advertisements online. Not something I wanted to hear.

"Oh no."

"What's wrong?"

"Well it's just..." I took a sec to think of anan excuse. I didn't want to tell her the truth yet. "... I'm not really comfortable having pictures of me on the internet like that."

"Ask if James can do something about it. He knows your dad personally so it should be ok." So I talked to James.

"Hey, do you think that the pictures of me could not go online?"

"There's not much I can do about that Humphrey."

"What do you mean? Aren't you the manager?"

"Of this facility, yes. Corporate basically approved this tournament as a means for advertisement. It's corporate's decision not mine." I was pretty dejected.

"I see."

"I'll tell you what, I'll only send them the pictures and videos where your face isn't in them." It was probably the best deal I was gonna get.

"OK, thank you." I went back to the group.

"Is it taken care of?"

"Not quite, but I was able to convince him to only send photos that my face isn't visible in."

"I suppose that's a fair compromise, anyway shall we go." We all left the arcade feeling pretty tired. The tournament atmosphere was pretty draining on all of us. When we got home Kate went to the kitchen to make dinner and Lilly went to help, leaving me and Shima in the living room.

"Will everything be OK?"

"To be honest, I don't know."

"We messed up, huh?" Yeah, but hopefully nothing will happen from it.

"We gotta tell dad though."

"Yeah... you're right." We both sat in silence for a few.

"Who should tell him?"

* * *

"Yo boss, check this out." An Alpha grunt brought his laptop into the boss' room. "It's videos from some rhythm game tournament in Sawtooth."

"Do you think I have time for games?"

"C'mon boss, you work too much, relax a little." The boss slammed his hands on the desk in front of him.

"The day I relax is the day the cops catch a trail and throw all of us in prison. Now get this shit out of he..." He paused when he noticed something, an Omega playing DDR with an Alpha female. The Omega looked familiar to him. Too familiar. "On second thought, leave it here, and get me my son."

"Yes sir." As the grunt walks out he mumbles under his breath "I hate when the boss gets like that." After a few minutes and several rewinds his son walks in the room.

"You wanted to see me dad?"

"Yeah, come sit." The young Alpha takes a seat across from his father. "Does this look familiar." He shows his son the video.

"It just looks like people playing that dance game. What about it?"

"Look closer." The young Alpha looks closer at the video and his eyes widen when he realizes what his father was trying to show him.

"That's..."

"Yup, and he'll be a problem if he isn't dealt with."

"You want me to bring him to you?"

"Something like that, I want you to hang out in Sawtooth for a while, bring some of your buddies. You can stay at the hideout there.

"What do you want us to do?"

"Just keep tabs on him. Make sure you bring the members you're going to bring with you in here first so I know who won't be here."

"OK dad." The Alpha leaves and soon returns with three members.

"Head on out son, let me give these guys a private chat." The young Alpha obliges and heads out the room. "A former member of ours went rouge and is planning to go to the authorities about us." He holds up a picture of Humphrey. "If you see him, you are to execute him on site. Until you do however, you follow my son's orders. Understood?"

"Yes sir!" The three said in unison.

"Good, now get to it." The members leave the boss' room. "How you managed to survive I don't know, but I do know that you are a loose end that needs to be tied. And I leave no loose ends."

 **It's about time right? I'm glad I was able to get this out at least. To be honest, there's no update schedule. It's just whenever I have the time to do so. Unfortunately, that might mean shorter chapters, hope that's fine. Until next time this is Ragmanthemadman signing off. Again sorry for the long wait.**


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